-----------------------------------
EQMM, August 2012
by Dell Magazine Authors
-----------------------------------

Mystery/Crime

Dell Magazines
www.dellmagazines.com

Copyright ©2012 by Dell Magazines

NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

Cover photo by Trista / istockphoto.com

CONTENTS

Fiction: THE STREET ENDS AT THE CEMETERY by Clark Howard

Fiction: HEY DAD by Joyce Carol Oates

Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider

Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Steve Steinbock

Fiction: NAIN ROUGE by Barbara Nadel

Fiction: THE LONG SHADOW by Peter Turnbull

Fiction: GUNPOWDER ALLEY by Bill Pronzini

Department Of First Stories: AMAZING GRACE, SORTA by J.L. Strickland

Fiction: FONTAINE HOUSE by Terrie Farley Moran

Fiction: LOSING IT by Melodie Johnson Howe

Passport to Crime: THE CRIME BEHIND THE FORTUNE by Tore Boeckmann

Fiction: MURDER UNCORDIAL by Amy Myers

* * * *

Janet Hutchings: Editor
Jackie Sherbow: Editorial Assistant
Susan Mangan: Vice President, Design & Production
Victoria Green: Senior Art Director
Cindy Tiberi: Production Artist
Laura Tulley: Senior Production Manager
Jennifer Cone: Production Associate
Abigail Browning: Director Of Marketing, Brand Licensing & E-Commerce
Terrie Poly: Digital Publishing Manager
Jayne Keiser: Typesetting Director
Suzanne Lemke: Assistant Typesetting Manager
Kevin Doris: Senior Typesetting Coordinator
Bruce W. Sherbow: Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing
Sandy Marlowe: Subscriber Services: 203-866-6688 Option #2

Peter Kanter: Publisher
Ellery Queen: Editor-in-Chief, 1941-1982
Eleanor Sullivan: Editor-in-Chief, 1982-1991

Advertising Sales Department
Phone: (203) 866-6688 x442
Fax: (203) 854-5962
printadvertising@dellmagazines.com
(Display and Classified Advertising)

Visit us at www.themysteryplace.com

Fiction: THE STREET ENDS AT THE CEMETERY
by Clark Howard

* * * *

* * * *

Art by Mark Evans

An Edgar winner, a five-time EQMM Readers Award winner, and one of the mystery field's best short-story writers, Clark Howard continues, after more than thirty years at the top of the profession, to give us stories that linger in the memory. Prisons and prisoners are common subjects of his crime stories, and in this one the guards are also in his lens. In 2011, Clark Howard was awarded a star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars for literary achievement.

As Cory Evans walked toward his car in the staff parking lot of the state prison, he had to pass the visitors’ parking lot, and that was where the woman was sitting, on a cast-iron bench bolted to the ground, under a punch-press metal sign from the prison machine shop that read: bus stop. It was cloudy and overcast, the first threatening sprinkles of rain beginning.

Cory walked past her, giving her only a glance, but a glance was enough for his trained corrections-officer mind to snap a mental picture of her: short-cropped bleached-blond hair, sharp facial features, shoulders slanted a little forward from years of poor posture, slim—a little underweight—wearing jeans that had been around, high-heeled boots scuffed at the toes. A dime-store girl. Dirt-poor Southern, Mississippi, maybe Alabama. A girl who could use a real good makeover.

Cory continued past her a dozen feet, then stopped. The sprinkles of rain were increasing.

“Miss the bus?” he asked the woman.

She nodded but did not look at him or speak.

“Won't be another one for an hour,” he said.

She shrugged. The story of her life.

“I can give you a lift into Sacramento,” he said.

“You a guard?” she asked, looking at him for the first time. Her eyes were like tracer bullets.

“I'm a corrections officer, yeah.”

“Well, I'm a convict visitor,” she said evenly. “Prob'ly wouldn't look too good, us driving off together, you think?”

“I'm not asking you to go to a motel with me,” Cory responded, just as evenly. “Just offering you a lift into Sacramento.” Now it was he who shrugged. “Take it or leave it.”

He walked on away. Before he got to his car, the rainfall became steady and she was walking beside him.

On the drive in, windshield wipers slapping, she asked, “Don't you want to know who I was visiting?”

“What do you mean who?"

“I mean, like my husband, boyfriend, brother—”

Cory threw her a quick glance. She had a little acne scar in front of her left ear. “Look,” he said, “even if you told me, I probably wouldn't know who you were talking about. We've got fifteen hundred-plus cons in there. Unless who you were visiting happened to be on my block, in my tier, which is highly unlikely, I wouldn't know him from Adam. You know who Adam was, right?”

“Were you born rude?” she snapped. “Or did you have to study it?”

At that point, a cloak of silence dropped over the interior of Cory's three-hole Buick, and they rode that way, the windshield wipers seeming to keep time with their heartbeats, the rain outside heavy enough now for Cory to turn on the car's headlights. Sitting without even a glance at the other, neither spoke until they reached the city limits of Sacramento.

“Where do you want me to drop you?” Cory asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable quiet.

“The Greyhound depot'll be fine,” she mumbled in reply.

Cory exited the Interstate and drove to 7th and L streets, where he swung around to the main entrance of the ugly, uninviting Greyhound depot and he pulled over and stopped with the engine idling.

“Listen, thanks for the lift,” she said, getting out, her tone mellower than before.

“Don't mention it,” Cory said, his own voice less disagreeable. “Have a nice trip home.”

After she shut the passenger door and hurried toward the depot entrance, Cory drove away and made a U-turn into a parking space half a block down the street. He kept the engine running so the wiper blades would keep the windshield clear, but then the rain suddenly stopped completely and he shut the car down. From where he was parked, he had an unobstructed view of the bus-depot entrance. He only had to wait five minutes before he saw the woman come back out of the door she had gone in, pause to glance around, then walk quickly away along L Street.

Leaving his car, Cory followed her at a discreet distance for several blocks, to a Motel 7 on the edge of a seedy downtown district. She walked directly to a room on the lower of the two floors, unlocked it with a key from her jeans pocket, and went inside. It was Room 121.

Cory returned to his car and drove to his own apartment, a little one-bedroom furnished place where he lived alone. He got a bottle of milk from his refrigerator and sat in an old club chair, drinking from the bottle and staring at the blank television screen for a long time, thinking about the woman. Later on, when he went to bed, he fell asleep thinking about her, wondering who she had been visiting, wondering even what her name was. He dreamed about her.

The next day, when Cory reported for his shift at the prison, the officer at the sign-in desk said, “You're wanted in the deputy warden's office.”

Cory frowned. “When?”

“Now.”

Cory made his way back out of the incoming-staff corridor to the prison's executive wing where Deputy Warden Lewis Duffy had his office. He'd been seen, Cory thought. Seen picking up a convict visitor and driving away from the prison with her!

Well, hell, that was all she wrote. As a corrections officer, he was all washed up.

When Cory was shown into the deputy warden's office, he found himself facing not only Deputy Warden Duffy but another man he had never seen before: a conservatively dressed man in a nondescript gray suit and an out-of-style wide necktie tied in a Windsor knot on a white shirt.

“Evans,” the deputy warden said, “this is Special Agent Roger Hardesty of the FBI.” Cory nodded to Hardesty. “Sit down, Evans. We have a few questions for you. Did you pick up a woman in the visitors parking lot yesterday, after your shift, and drive away with her?”

“Yessir, I did.”

“Did you know the woman?”

“No, sir.”

“Why did you drive away with her in your car?”

“It was starting to rain. She'd missed the bus and there wasn't another scheduled for an hour. There's no shelter of any kind at that bus stop.” Cory shrugged. “I just offered her a ride.”

“You're aware, are you not, of our fraternization rules regarding inmate visitors?”

“Yessir. But it wasn't really fraternization, Warden. I just offered her a ride. Like I said, it was starting to rain—”

“Did you exchange names with her?”

“No, sir—”

“Telephone numbers, addresses, personal information of any kind?”

“No, sir. Nothing.

“Where did you take the woman?”

“To the Greyhound depot on L Street in Sacramento.”

“Where did you go then?”

“Straight to my apartment,” Cory lied, shifting uneasily in his chair. “Am I being written up for this? If I am, I'd like to have a union representative present.”

“There's no need for that, Evans. I don't intend to make a formal record of this meeting. Offering that woman a ride into town, even under the circumstances you outlined, was not, in my mind, very good judgment, but no report will be made if you agree to cooperate with Agent Hardesty here.”

Cory looked over at the FBI man. “Cooperate with him how?”

“I'd like to give you a little information about the woman you picked up, Officer Evans,” the agent said. “Her name is Billie Sue Neeley. The inmate she was visiting is Lester Dragg, serving six years for Grand Theft Auto. He's been in two, up for parole in eighteen months. The bureau is interested in him because we know he drove the getaway car in a bank robbery down in Modesto. The two gunmen who went into the bank grabbed one million, two hundred thousand dollars that was scheduled to be picked up by an armored truck about twenty minutes later. The robbery would have gone off perfectly except that the armored truck got there early, just as the holdup men ran out of the bank and threw the two sacks of money into the getaway car. The armored-truck guards opened fire on the two men before they could get into the car themselves. In the shootout, both holdup men were killed. But the getaway car, with the money in it, got away. The armored-truck guards didn't get the license number but gave a good description of the car. It turned out to be stolen. Three days later, the California Highway Patrol snagged the car in a line waiting to cross the border into Tijuana. Lester Dragg was driving; Billie Sue Neeley was a passenger. There was no sign of the money. We had no eyewitness ID that Dragg had been the driver in the bank job. All we could get him on was a state charge of Grand Theft Auto as the driver of a stolen vehicle. And we had nothing at all on the Neeley woman; she claimed to be a hitchhiker and Dragg backed up her story.”

“So the bank robbery is why the FBI is interested,” Cory guessed.

“Exactly. If we can put Dragg next to that money, we can nail him on federal bank-robbery charges, and maybe get the Neeley woman for conspiracy.”

“You think the Neeley woman knows where the money is?” Cory asked.

Agent Hardesty shrugged.

“Hard to say. She certainly isn't spending it if she does. She lives very frugally; the only income she appears to have is an unemployment check from the state that she gets twice a month.”

So I was wrong, Cory thought. Not dirt-poor Mississippi or Alabama. An Okie from Oklahoma. Still dirt poor.

“There's got to be some reason she's hanging around waiting for Dragg to get out,” Hardesty continued, “and we figure it's the money.”

“She could just be crazy about the guy,” Cory offered.

“Possibly,” Deputy Warden Duffy reentered the conversation. “She's listed on his visitor card as his common-law wife.”

Cory nodded thoughtfully. “So what do I have to do with all this?” he asked, looking from the agent to the deputy warden.

“That remains to be seen,” Hardesty said. “You've accidentally made contact with her. We know she's living in the Motel 7 on Weed Street in Sacramento.” No kidding, Cory thought.

“I've had her under surveillance for some time. I know where she shops, the movies she goes to, where she eats supper, everything. We thought, Deputy Warden Duffy and I, if we could arrange for you to run into her again—”

“Wait a minute,” Cory interrupted, holding both hands up, palms out, deciding to play it dumb, “if you want me to be some kind of bait to trap this woman for the FBI, you've got the wrong guy. I'm a corrections officer, not some kind of undercover cop. I'm not up for anything like this.”

The FBI agent and the deputy warden exchanged serious looks. “Evans,” the deputy warden said, “my decision to keep this meeting informal was based on you cooperating with Agent Hardesty. You picked up this woman yesterday in violation of regulations governing your employment. Agent Hardesty's surveillance of her was compromised because of that—”

“I don't see how,” Cory objected.

“I was on the bus the Neeley woman missed,” Hardesty said. “By the time I got back to that bus stop, Neeley was gone. Deputy Warden Duffy had to have the prison check all of its closed-circuit security tapes to find out how she left the institution.”

The deputy warden leaned forward and locked his fingers together on the desktop. “Look, Evans,” he said in an even but not unfriendly voice, “you're not being asked to do anything but pursue an acquaintance with this woman and report back to Agent Hardesty anything she says to you. Just be friendly, that's all. And in exchange for that, your serious breach of regulations yesterday will not become a formal report.”

“That's kind of like blackmail, isn't it?” Cory asked, his own voice equally even but not challenging.

“I'll overlook that comment,” the deputy warden said. “I'll even sweeten the pot a little bit. Cooperate in this matter and the next time a sergeant's opening comes up, I'll personally see that you get on the list. High on the list.” He sat back in his big swivel chair. “Now, what's it going to be, Evans?”

Cory managed to exhale a deep breath that sounded both weary and resigned. “I guess I'm about to make a new friend,” he said.

And all the time he was thinking: An Okie from Oklahoma. And all that money.

After Cory left the office, the deputy warden sat forward again and silently drummed the fingers of one hand on the desktop.

“I hope to hell you know what you're doing,” he said tightly to the FBI agent.

“I know exactly what I'm doing—or rather what we're doing,” Hardesty said confidently. He smiled broadly. “Just play along with me, my friend, and you and I will cut up one million, two hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills. As long as this guy Evans does as he's told and doesn't get any bright ideas of his own.”

Duffy guffawed. “That guy? Hell, Roger, he's a prison guard! He's about as smart as a bag of nails. You don't have to worry about him.”

Or you either, I hope, Hardesty thought. A million two was serious money. Serious enough to give almost any man pause for thought.

“So,” Duffy asked, “where do we go from here?”

“Today's Tuesday,” Hardesty said. “The Neeley woman has gone to the movies every Wednesday night for two months. We'll get Evans back in here in the morning and brief him on what to do when she goes to the movies tomorrow night. Then we'll be off and running.”

“Okay,” Duffy said. Then, as if to convince himself, he repeated it. “Okay.”

* * * *

The following night, when the first showing of the evening feature was over, Cory was waiting in the doorway of a coffee shop next to the Nugget Theater. When Billie Sue Neeley emerged in the exiting audience, he stepped out to meet her.

“Need a ride?” he asked.

She stopped, startled at having been spoken to. “What do you want?” she asked, almost demanded.

“You and I need to sit down and have a talk,” Cory said. “An FBI man is watching you, and now he's watching me because I gave you a ride day before yesterday. We need to have a serious conversation.”

Billie studied him for a long moment in the white glare of the movie-theater marquee, with people moving past them on the sidewalk, talking amongst themselves, without even a glance at Cory and Billie. Presently she made her decision.

“Okay. Where?”

“There's a coffee shop around the corner.”

“Let's go,” Billie said. It was almost an order.

The place was called Cliff's Cafe. It had a ten-stool counter and six red vinyl booths for four, all under a sea of fluorescent lights that made its patrons look somehow ill, like they belonged in an emergency room for a transfusion instead of a cafe for a burger. The menus were in imitation red-leather folders that matched the vinyl booths.

“You hungry?” Cory asked conversationally when they slid into a booth.

“No,” she snapped tightly.

“Well, I am.”

When the waitress came, Cory ordered the Cliff's Special, a quarter-pounder with cheese, bacon, and the works, served with crispy-crinkle fries on the side. With it he ordered a Dr Pepper. Billie ordered black coffee.

“Well?” she asked as they waited for their order, in the same demanding tone she had used in their encounter on the street. Cory fixed her with his flat corrections-officer stare.

“Okay, here's the story,” he said.

He laid it out for her. Everything. All that had taken place in the deputy warden's office. He was straight with her, as he had earlier decided he would be. He told her everything—except the fact that he had followed her to the Motel 7 after she had left the bus depot. That was personal, he had decided. That was between him and her, and the deputy warden and the FBI had nothing to do with it. At that point he was not sure why he felt that way.

When his food was served and he began to eat, and Billie began to tentatively sip at her black coffee, she studied him now more than he studied her. What she saw was a guy with a pretty ordinary face: eyes a little too close together, nose slightly hooked, one ear a bit jugged.

Certainly not as handsome as her man in prison. Lester Dragg, except for a couple of crooked teeth, looked like Johnny Depp. Half the girls back in Atoka High had been crazy about him. But it was Billie Sue Neeley who snagged him. Lucky her, she had eventually thought wryly, but by then it was too late to turn back.

“So how come you're being so straight with me?” she finally asked.

Cory locked eyes with her. “I don't like being blackmailed by the deputy warden and an FBI agent,” he told her evenly.

Billie gave him a knowing look. “Wouldn't have anything to do with the money, would it?” She picked up one of his crispy-crinkle fries and ate it.

“They seem to think you know where it is,” he told her. She took another one of his fries, salted this one, and munched some more. “Thought you weren't hungry,” he reminded her.

“I don't know where the money is,” Billie said, ignoring his last remark.

“I get the feeling that this FBI agent thinks you might be able to find out where it is.”

“That agent wouldn't by any chance be named Hardesty, would he?”

“Yeah. You know him?”

“He's been leaning on me ever since Les and I got caught in that hot car trying to cross into Mexico. See, he blew it that day, big time. If he'd let us cross, he could have paid the Mexican border cops to bump us back into the U.S. and then he'd have had Les on a federal rap, international transportation of a stolen vehicle. But he jumped the gun. Got itchy about finding the money, prob'ly. So all he could do is turn Les over to the California law and get him sent up on a stolen-car rap. Once he got Les put away, he started stalking me. I told him a hunnerd times I didn't know what Les had done with that bank take, but he just never believed me.” Billie sighed a weary sigh and continued to eat his crispy-crinkle fries. But her eyes narrowed slightly.

“What does Hardesty expect you to get out of me?”

“I don't know.” Cory finished his burger and pushed his plate with the rest of the fries over to her. “Maybe he thinks you'll fall for me, drop Lester, and decide to split the money with me.”

Billie grunted softly. “Won't work. Nothing personal, but you're not my type.” Her remark got no reaction at all from Cory. Billie's eyes narrowed even more, not in suspicion now but curiosity. “Well?” she finally challenged.

“Well what?”

“Aren't you going to say I'm not your type either? I mean, I'm a convict's girl and you're a prison guard, for God's sake!”

Cory finished the last of his Dr Pepper and set the bottle aside, shrugging. “I guess I don't know exactly what kind of woman is my type. I haven't had much luck with women.”

When they left the cafe, Cory walked her back to the Motel 7.

“So what do you think?” Billie asked when they got to the door of her room. “Where does this go from here?”

“I don't know. I guess we just play it out and see where it takes us.”

“I guess,” Billie agreed.

She went on into her room and Cory walked away, toward his apartment.

Inside, Billie parted the curtains of the room's small window and watched him walking away. With the palm of one hand rubbing up and down her thigh, she watched him until he was out of sight. She had been a long time without a man.

* * * *

During visiting hours the next day, an agitated Lester Dragg tapped one knuckle of the metal visiting-room table that separated them. It was an open visiting room where inmates and visitors could touch, hug, kiss, snack on junk food from state-owned vending machines, and in some cases, transfer drugs and other contraband. But Lester Dragg was not interested in doing any of that. Lester Dragg was only interested in the hack named Evans that Billie Sue had met.

“What else did he tell you about Hardesty?” Lester was particularly curious about the FBI agent.

“Nothing,” Billie explained patiently, “except what I already told you.” She sighed audibly. “Why? I mean, what's so important about him?”

“What's so important about him is that he's the fed that's been trying to cut some kind of deal with me about the money.”

“You never told me about anything like that,” Billie said, surprised.

“I didn't think you needed to know, Billie Sue!” he snapped. “Sometimes the less you know, the safer I feel.”

Billie looked away for a moment. Lester had a way of hurting her feelings like that. It usually happened when he was upset about something. Or when he was angry. She had begun to notice that when he was upset or angry, he didn't look so much like Johnny Depp anymore.

Brushing aside her hurt feelings, Billie asked, “What do you want me to do about him? The corrections guy?”

“I don't know. Just play along with him for the time being, I reckon. See if you can figure out what Hardesty and that deputy warden are planning. But be careful what you say to him. And whatever you do,” he pointed a threatening finger at her, “don't tell him that you told me about meeting him. You got that straight?”

“I got it, Les.”

He took her hands across the table, and his voice softened the way it did when he wanted something. “Listen, honey, if you should get, you know, friendly with this hack, to the point where he might consider doing you a favor, well, go for it, okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you put out to him a little, you might could ask if he could maybe get me transferred out of the goddamned laundry. All that bleach I have to handle is making my hands raw.”

Billie stiffened, but only inside so he wouldn't notice. “Are you saying it's okay for me to go to bed with this guy if he'll get you transferred to a better job?”

“Well, yeah,” Lester said, shrugging innocently. “I mean, it wouldn't be for real or anything. Just something you'd do for me, honey, to make my life a little easier. You understand what I mean, don't you, babe?”

“Yeah, Lester. Sure, I understand.”

Walking back to the bus stop after the visit, Billie Sue felt like the back of her neck was on fire.

* * * *

That evening, Cory came by the motel in his car to get her and they went downtown to an Italian restaurant that was considerably nicer than Cliff's Cafe had been. Cory ordered a bottle of Barolo and as they drank wine and waited for their dinner, Billie told him about her visit with Lester.

“I can't believe he actually asked me to do that,” she complained. “I mean, I'm supposed to be his girl and he actually asked me to go to bed with you to get him a better job assignment!”

“Wouldn't have worked anyway,” Cory said. “I'm just a level-one corrections officer. Only sergeants and higher can get an inmate transferred.” He studied her for a moment, then said, “You look very nice tonight. No boots, no worn-out jeans.” She was wearing dress slacks and heels, with a scooped-neck long-sleeved sweater.

She shrugged. “Well, I didn't want you to think I was a complete Okie from Muskogee. I do know how to dress. Lester makes me dress down when I visit the prison; he says it keeps the guards from hitting on me.”

Cory smiled. “Officers aren't likely to hit on women who visit inmates. Mostly they think of them as sluts; you know, tattoos, nose rings, half a pound of makeup—trying to look good for the loser inside.”

“Do you think I'm one of those?” Billie asked frankly. “A slut?”

“No, I don't.” Cory looked away. “I have a confession to make. I followed you to the motel that first night, after I let you out at the bus depot. I had a feeling you'd come back out, so I waited. And I followed you.”

“Why are you telling me this now?”

“I guess I wanted you to know that I was interested in you even before all this business with the deputy warden and the FBI guy started.”

Billie tilted her head a bit. “Interested in me how? Getting laid?”

“No. Not at that point. Although I'm sure it would eventually have come to that. But just then I only felt that I'd like to know more about you: what your name was, where you came from, how you got to where you are now.” Abruptly he stopped talking, as if unsure what to say next.

“Well, you already know my name,” she told him in a throaty voice that he took notice of for the first time. “As to where I came from, we called it Dustburg. I was a sharecropper's kid. One of thirteen. Got pulled out of school when I was twelve to work in the fields. It wasn't a real fun life. One of my brothers was retarded everywhere but between his legs; me and my sisters slept with big rocks in bed to fight him off with.

“On Saturdays we'd all pile onto the back of Daddy's flatbed and go into town. That was a real big deal. We'd drive past five hundred telephone poles until we came to a sign that said city limits. After a while I got to where I'd think: So what? A tacky little one-street nothing full of dirt-poor people who lived on a steady diet of revivals every Sunday.” She took a long swallow of Barolo. “So you want to know where I came from? I came from nowhere.”

“That where you hooked up with Lester?”

“Yeah. When I was old enough I started slipping away from the rest of the herd on Saturday afternoons and hanging out at a juke joint. A typical Okie dive, one of those shot-and-a-beer hole-in-the-walls with a couple of drop-pocket pool tables, an old Wurlitzer that still took nickels, a few card tables, and a steady stream of would-be Romeos trying to look like something special but coming off like nothing no how. Lester was one of them. But somehow—” her voice momentarily drifted off and she stared down at the red circle in her wineglass.

“Let me guess,” said Cory quietly, “somehow Lester was different.”

Billie snapped back to real time and her expression tightened. “You making fun of me?”

Cory shook his head. “Just trying to get to know you, Billie.” It was the first time he had spoken her name and he could tell by the look on her face that it meant something to her.

It was during their dinner, well into a second bottle of Barolo, that Billie Sue seriously considered for the first time the face of the man sitting across from her: the smooth, clean angles of his jaw, the straight white teeth, lips that a woman might yearn to have all over her body—and she looked into his light blue, almost grey, eyes and in an instant she was a goner. Forget about Lester, let the prick rot in prison, she was hungry for it and she was going to do it with this prison guard—excuse me, corrections officer—this very night. Come hell or high water, or boll weevils at harvest time.

* * * *

At three o'clock in the morning, Cory and Billie sat up in her bed at the Motel 7, turned on a forty-watt light on the nightstand, and shared a bottle of warm Mexican beer from a six-pack they had picked up on the way from the restaurant where they had dinner. Billie's room was a one-star C&T: cheap and tacky. Coin-operated TV, swamp cooler instead of air conditioner, hot and cold running cockroaches.

“Christ, what a pigsty,” Cory observed, looking around for the first time without raw lust on his mind. “I've seen landfills that were more appealing.”

“Lester's idea,” Billie said blandly. “He said if I lived anywhere more expensive, I'd attract attention.”

“Good old Lester. All heart.”

Billie finished the beer in the bottle they were sharing and got out of bed to walk naked over to a table to get another. Cory, seeing her undressed and upright for the first time, saw that she was a little heavy in the thighs and had a line of proud flesh across one shoulder blade.

“Don't be looking at my thighs,” she chastised, walking back. “I know they're thick.”

“I didn't notice,” Cory lied. “I was looking at the scar on your back. How'd you get it?”

“My daddy whipped me with a bridle strap after he caught me coming out of the juke joint with Lester. Mama made him stop after he drew blood, else I'd have more scars. My sister Lillie Lee has got five of them, criss-crossed. Daddy caught her naked in the back of a pickup truck with a neighbor's boy.” Billie got back in bed, took a swallow from the new bottle, and handed it to Cory. “Well, Mr. Corrections Officer, where the hell do we go from here?”

“Damned if I know,” Cory said. “If you knew where that money was, we could just take it, blow a goodbye kiss to Lester, the deputy warden, and that FBI agent, and fly away to paradise.” He fixed her in an unblinking stare. “But you don't know where it is, do you?”

“Nope. Wish I did.” Everything comes down to the money, she thought.

“How'd you and Lester end up in California?” Cory asked, changing the subject.

Or was he changing the subject, she wondered. Was he trying to get to know her a little better, or just moving the conversation around to where the money came back into the picture? Damn it all anyway.

“After my daddy whipped me,” she addressed his question, “Lester said to hell with Oklahoma, we're going out to sunny California and get us jobs as movie extras. He said he looked enough like Johnny Depp that it would be a cinch for him, and he allowed that while I wasn't no raving beauty, I could prob'ly pick up a few jobs anyway. So we hopped into his falling-apart Mustang and hit the old Interstate. Got as far as Joseph City, Arizona, when the car broke down. Sold it for junk and bought us Trailways bus tickets to L.A. Lester got a job at a gas station and I started waiting tables in a coffee shop. Neither one of us had a clue about becoming movie extras. It was at the gas station that Lester met the two slickers that got him involved in the bank job. One of them was a Mexican dude, the other was some kind of surfer type who had worked as a bag boy in a grocery market across the street from the bank they tried to rob. He had seen the armored truck make its pickup week after week, and figured the bank must have loads of cash ready to go just before the pickups. The bank was in Modesto, a little town up north of L.A., just a branch, only four teller windows and no guard, but it was in a strip mall and had a lot of business traffic, so they figured the take would be pretty good—never dreamed of no million, two hundred thousand! Lester said they guessed maybe a hundred thou tops. They offered him ten thousand to wait outside and drive the getaway car. We planned to use our share and head for Hawaii. Lester wanted to get a job as a lifeguard on Waikiki Beach, and he said I could go back to waiting tables again—”

“Good old Lester,” Cory said again, grunting audibly. “Always picking a glamour job for himself, and waiting tables for you.”

Billie grunted back. “Tell me about it. Took me awhile to tumble to that, but I finally got wise. Except by then I didn't have no place to go, so I just hung with Lester.”

“Too bad you and I don't have that bank money. Make life a lot different for you.”

Billie sat up and twisted around on the bed until she was facing him. “You always swing back to talking about the money, don't you, honey? What's on your mind, really?”

Cory shrugged. “What difference does it make? You don't know where the money is, right?”

“Right. Don't have a clue.”

Cory fell silent for several moments, eyes downcast, staring at the beer bottle it was now his turn to hold, with Billie's naked breasts prominent in his peripheral vision. His lips were pursed as he molded his thoughts for what he would say next. When he finally spoke, he looked back at Billie's face without blinking and said, “How much do you think it would be worth to Lester if I could get him out of prison?”

“Get him out when?” she asked, surprised.

“Soon,” Cory told her. “Very soon.”

* * * *

The next morning, Cory was back with the deputy warden and FBI agent Hardesty.

“I don't think the Neeley woman knows where the money is,” he told them, “but I think I can get Lester to lead you to it if you can find a way to spring him. She says he wants a transfer out of the laundry detail. I was thinking maybe—the dairy farm?”

Hardesty and Duffy exchanged surprised looks. “You mean help him escape?” Duffy asked, aghast.

“Why not?” Cory reasoned. “He would be taken right back into custody by Agent Hardesty, and returned here before there was any record that he was ever out.”

Hardesty rubbed his chin. “Not a bad idea,” he said.

“But what if we can't follow him once he's out?” Duffy worried. “We could lose him.”

“Not a problem,” Hardesty assured him. “If we provide a car for him, I'll have a silent tracker signal unit attached to it that we can follow from our own car.”

“How about using my car for Lester once he's out,” Cory suggested. “The Neeley woman is familiar with it, she'll be comfortable in it.”

Hardesty shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Duffy grimaced, looking agitated.

“Look, here's how we can work it,” Cory said. “I tell the woman I can arrange to get Lester transferred to the dairy farm. It's a job he can simply walk away from. I say that she and I can be parked in my car at a highway rest stop about a mile from the farm. I tell her I'll do it for, say, a hundred thousand of the bank money. When Lester gets to the car, we pick him up and head for wherever the money is. Once we get there, you two show, make the collar, and it's a done deal.”

Hardesty was smiling, but Duffy was shaking his head. “I don't know,” the deputy warden said. “It goes against my grain, letting a con walk away like that.”

“Look,” Hardesty reasoned, “you won't exactly be letting him walk away. You're giving him a short furlough, is all. And technically he'll still be in custody because Evans here is going to be with him all the time—and Evans is a corrections officer. See?” He turned to Cory. “I like it, Evans. I think it'll work. But are you sure you can set it up?”

“Positive. Actually, it was the Neeley woman's idea. She started talking about getting Lester transferred out of the laundry, and I just took it from there. I didn't even have to ask for a share of the bank money; she offered it.” Cory grinned. “She thinks I'm just a dumb prison guard out to make some easy money.”

“Well, won't she be surprised?” Hardesty said with a chuckle.

Won't a lot of people, Cory thought.

* * * *

At a prison visiting-room table, Billie Neeley and Lester Dragg leaned forward on their elbows to converse privately.

“You sure you can trust this dude?” Lester asked uneasily.

“Sure as rain, baby,” Billie answered confidently. “The guy's a big hick. You should have seen his eyes bulge when I offered him a hundred grand.”

“Yeah, well he ain't gonna get no hunnerd grand,” Lester said, pouting. “Ten grand, maybe, if ever'thing goes smooth.” He paused, then frowned suspiciously. “You go to bed with this dude to get him to do this?”

“Hell, no!” Billie declared. “Didn't have to. Oh, I let him cop a few feels, so he prob'ly thinks he's got something going, but he's wrong.” Reaching over, she took one of Lester's hands. “You're the only one for me, sugar. Always have been.”

“Well, all right then,” Lester said triumphantly. “I'm counting on you, babe. Don't you let me down, hear?”

“I'd never let you down, sugar. You mean the world to me, you know that.”

She squeezed his hand for emphasis.

* * * *

In Cory's apartment, where Billie Sue had been spending the nights, she and Cory sat across from each other at his little dinette table.

“Okay, listen up,” Cory said solemnly. “This situation is coming down to the wire. We've got to put all our cards on the table.” He locked eyes with her. “I think it's about time you tell me where the money is.”

Billie stiffened, biting her lower lip. Their eyes were like riveted bolts; neither of them even blinked. After a heavy moment, Billie took a deep, almost tortured breath.

“It's in a public storage facility down in Modesto, where the bank was robbed.”

Cory frowned. “Why haven't you already grabbed it? Or told me about it earlier so we could grab it together? You still hung up on Lester, is that it?”

“No, damn it to hell!” She began blurting words like machine gun rounds. “Lester says the storage facility has a cyclone fence around it that's wired to a twenty-four-hour security company. There's a keyboard on the gate with a six-digit code for people to get in after hours, and Lester never told me the code. It's a great big place and I don't even know which unit he rented, and anyway he said he put this big combination padlock on the door, and Lester didn't tell me the combination either, so I couldn't get into the damned locker even if I did know which one it was—”

She was crying now and pounding the table with both fists, so Cory had to reach out and grab her wrists to stop her. “Okay, okay, okay! It's okay! Calm down—”

It took a couple of minutes, but he managed to get her calm and got her some tissues to dry her eyes. But even calm, she was still agitated, exuding a high-strung energy he had never seen in her before.

“I didn't know what to do,” she seemed to be arguing with herself. “Tell you, don't tell you, lie to Lester, don't lie to Lester, try to keep all my stories straight—”

“Listen to me.” He held her hands firmly across the table, “you do know where this storage place is, right?”

“Sure, I do,” she said irritably. “I been sending a thirty-dollar money order there every month for two damn years! I ought to know where it is! Let go of my hands, you're hurting me.”

Cory released her, rose, and came around the table to kneel beside her. “Listen to me.” He reached up to stroke her hair. “Everything's going to be okay. I'm going to arrange to get Lester out and the three of us are going to Modesto and get that money. And when we do get it, we're going to leave old Lester high and dry, and you and I are going to disappear together, how does that sound?”

Billie Sue sputtered a little. “Well—can we do that—I mean can we get away with it—I mean what about that warden and that FBI guy—and what about Lester—do we have to kill him—?”

“Hell, no, baby. We're not killers. We'll just leave Lester locked in his own storage locker. Somebody will find him the next day when he makes enough noise. But we'll be long gone by then.”

Gently Cory pulled her head down and kissed her tenderly on the lips, tasting the salt from her tears. He continued to stroke her hair.

“This is going to work for us, baby. I've got it all figured out.”

* * * *

In Duffy's office the next morning, the deputy warden and agent Hardesty told Cory the plan was ready to be put into operation. Inmate Lester Dragg had been transferred outside the walls to the prison dairy farm.

“It's an honor assignment,” Duffy reminded them. “No walls, just a cyclone fence with no razor wire across the top, and the last head count of the day is at six o'clock. Escape can be effected by going to some remote corner of the pasture, climbing over the fence, and simply walking away. Since the inmates assigned there are nonviolent first-offenders with only a short time to serve, no one has ever taken advantage of that easy way out. Lester Dragg will be the first.”

“Then we're all set,” Cory said. “The Neeley woman is convinced that she got me to arrange his transfer to the farm for a hundred-grand cut of the bank money. When she sees him tomorrow, she'll tell him it's all arranged for that night. He'll walk over to the highway and the Neeley woman and I will pick him up in my car.” He looked at Hardesty. “You have that tracking trans—mitter?”

“I've got it in my car in the visitors parking lot.”

“Good. I'll pull my car around from the staff lot and you can put it on. You need tools?”

“No, it's magnetic. I just clamp it to anything metal on the undercarriage. The GPTS receiver sits on my dashboard.”

“What's GPTS?” the deputy warden asked, frowning. Cory and Hardesty exchanged disdainful glances.

“Global Positioning Tracking System,” Hardesty said. “I'll explain how it works when we're following them.”

The deputy warden shook his head doubtfully. “I don't know. This thing is getting pretty involved. I mean, transferring him outside the walls with no notice, then having him just walk away—suppose somebody catches him? And this business of following him with some kind of gadget stuck to the bottom of a car—I just don't know—”

Hardesty rose and leaned over Duffy's desk, both hands planted hands-down. “Look,” he said, calmly but firmly. “This is going to work. All we have to do is stick to the plan, see? It's that simple. Relax and stick to the plan. Nothing will go wrong. Okay?”

The way Hardesty was leaning over the desk, Deputy Warden Duffy could see under his open coat front the service revolver the FBI agent carried. It was an intimidating sight. “Okay,” he blurted. “Okay. We'll just stick to the plan.”

“Fine.” Hardesty straightened, and to Cory said, “Let's go get your car set up.”

After Cory and Hardesty left his office, Deputy Warden Duffy unlocked a bottom desk drawer and removed his old service revolver, a .38 S&W Special. In case anything did go wrong, he didn't want Hardesty to be the only one there with a gun.

* * * *

Outside the prison, when Cory and Hardesty had their cars parked alongside each other, Hardesty opened a small box about the size of a deck of playing cards and began unwrapping its contents. As he did so, he asked casually, “What's your opinion of Duffy?”

“In what way?” Cory asked back.

“You think he's up for this? He seems kind of shaky to me.”

“I noticed that,” Cory agreed.

“How do you feel about it? The plan, I mean.”

“I think it's good. I think it'll work. There's only one thing that bothers me.”

“Yeah? What's that?”

“The cut. I think I deserve a cut. All I've been promised out of this is a future promotion to sergeant. While you and Duffy divide a million two in cash. After all I've done to move this plan along, that doesn't seem quite fair.”

Hardesty paused in what he was doing and fixed Cory in a flat stare. “Well, tell me, Officer Evans, what do you think would be fair?”

“If you and Duffy are splitting the money evenly, that's six hundred thousand apiece. If each of you kicked in a hundred grand for me, you'd both still have half a mil left—”

“And you'd have two hundred thou—”

“Plus those sergeant's stripes.”

Hardesty smiled, not his professional FBI smile, but a George Bush kinder, gentler smile. “I've been wondering when you'd make your pitch, Evans. I've been expecting it. You're smart. And you're reliable. Two things that Duffy isn't. How would you feel about an even fifty-fifty split between you and me?”

“How could you do that?” Cory asked with obvious interest.

“Easy. The two of us take the money and hit the road. We lock the deputy warden, the escaped convict, and his slut girlfriend in the storage garage with a new lock I'll bring with me.”

Hardesty's smile now morphed into one of almost evil delight. “How Duffy will explain things when they're found will be his problem. You and I will be, as the old chain-gang song goes, long gone to Bowling Green.”

“How can you manage that? You'd be a missing FBI agent.”

Now Hardesty chuckled. “I resigned from the bureau a year ago, when I first started working on this plan. I just never got around to telling Duffy about it. So nobody'll be looking for me. And if you're smart, you'll drop off your resignation at the prison's administrative office in the morning, effective immediately, so nobody'll be looking for you either. We just go our separate ways, me in my car, you in yours.”

Now it was Cory who smiled. “Only problem with that is, you can follow me with your GPTS tracker. That would make me a little nervous.”

“Hell, I'll give you the monitor,” Hardesty said, shrugging. “Look, kid, we've got to trust each other to make this work. I'm not greedy. I'll settle for six hundred thou if you will. Have we got a deal?”

Cory thought about Billie Sue sitting in his apartment, and Duffy sitting back in his deputy warden's office, and Lester Dragg who had been sitting in his prison cell for two years, and all that money lying in a storage unit a hundred and twenty miles away in Modesto...

“Yeah,” he told Hardesty, “we've got a deal.”

Hardesty finished unwrapping the item he had taken from the small box and showed it to Cory. It was slightly smaller than the box, made of metal, bluish in color, and was completely covered all the way around, except for a small indented switch on one edge. “This side is magnetized,” he told Cory, demonstrating by laying it gently on the side of a car door, to which it attached without falling off. “The magnetized side has an ultra-high field strength which gives it a very strong resistivity once attached, so that even if your car should hit a large bump, the device will not fall off.”

Hardesty got a rolled-up blanket from the backseat of his car and unrolled it under the rear of Cory's Buick. Removing his coat, he handed it to Cory to hold for him while he lay down and scooted well under the car so that only his feet remained extended. Very carefully he placed the tracking device on the side of the vehicle's muffler and switched it on.

“Go look at the monitor on the dashboard of my car,” he called to Cory. “Tell me if the screen has turned from black to blue.”

Hardesty watched Cory's feet at he walked round to Hardesty's car. While Cory was so occupied, Hardesty removed a second tracker, already unwrapped, from his trousers pocket, switched that one on also, and attached it to the opposite side of the muffler from the first one.

“The screen is blue,” Cory called over.

“Okay, good.” Hardesty scooted back out from under Cory's car and pulled the blanket out, rolling it back up and tossing it into his car again. With his coat back on, he showed Cory how the tracking monitor on his dashboard worked. It was about the size of a paperback book, with most of its front being taken up by a small screen. Slowly turning a global-assist dial, he had Cory watch while a map materialized and a white blip blinked on and off, indicating exactly where Cory's Buick was parked—right next to them. “Now I'll always know where you are until this thing we're doing is over,” he said with a wink. Unless, he thought, Cory double-crossed him and removed the first tracker. In which case, he would still know where Cory was, by simply changing the monitor's frequency to the second tracker. As a former longtime FBI agent, Hardesty knew that a man couldn't be too careful when dealing with dishonest people.

* * * *

Billie Sue Neeley was not, as Cory imagined, sitting in Cory's apartment waiting for him, but instead was in her own shabby little Motel 7 room preparing for her part in the escape from prison of Lester Dragg.

One of the main things in her preparation was to count how much money she had left of the twenty thousand dollars Lester had given her to subsist on in the event that after the bank robbery that had gone so badly they did not successfully escape to Mexico. Immediately following his getaway with the two canvas sacks of cash, Lester had marshaled up a rare presence of mind and located a storage facility in which to conceal the loot, even purchasing a heavy-duty combination padlock from a selection on sale in the rental office.

In the garage-size unit, he had used a pocket knife he habitually carried to cut open one of the locked canvas money bags and remove twenty thousand dollars in mixed unmarked currency, which he subsequently boxed up at a nearby private post office and mailed to Billie Sue Neeley care of General Delivery in Modesto. All this was accomplished in one hour immediately following his getaway from the bank. His hastily formed plan was to escape to

Mexico, lay low for a while on several hundred dollars he had taken for expenses, then when things cooled down following the holdup, send Billie Sue back to Modesto to pick up the package at General Delivery. They would then go somewhere and live off that money until it was safe enough to retrieve the bulk of the loot from the rental facility.

It was a brilliant plan, doubly so being conceived so quickly in the mind of an oaf like Lester. And it may well have worked had he and Billie Sue not been stopped trying to cross into Mexico in a car stolen, unknown to Lester, by his two now-deceased cohorts the evening prior to the robbery. After Lester's apprehension and subsequent conviction for Grand Theft Auto, Billie Sue, who could not be charged with anything, moved to Sacramento to be near the prison where he was incarcerated, and to live, as he sternly instructed, a very frugal, almost indigent low-profile life, so as not to suggest that she or Lester had any knowledge of the whereabouts of all that bank loot, which in fact had never left, and still remained within two miles of the bank from which it had been stolen.

Billie kept the twenty thousand from General Delivery hidden in a space under the bottom drawer of a shabby dresser in the dumpy motel in which Lester insisted she lived. Access to the money, from which she removed only a pittance at a time, was by removing the drawer completely, revealing a four-inch space between the dresser and the floor upon which it stood. Billie had no qualms about the possible theft of the money; only an imbecile would think of stealing anything from the premises of a Motel 7.

Now, however, after her last visit with Lester, during which the plan for his escape had been finalized, he had given her specific instructions to take out all of the remaining money, and to use part of it to buy him a handgun. He had explained exactly how she was to do it.

* * * *

The name of the establishment to which Billie had been directed, on information Lester had been given by a fellow convict, was located on the fringe of what passed for Sacramento's skid row: the Three Balls Pawn Shop. It had, as was customary for such a business, an overhang above its entrance, with three shiny white balls, under which was a sign which read: money to loan.

When Billie Sue entered, she was greeted by a smallish, balding man wearing a hearing aid. “I'd like to buy a gun,” she said.

“The ones I have are back here,” the pawnbroker said, with not a hint of surprise. He led her to the rear of the store. “These are the ones I have that are out of pawn and available for sale. Did you have anything particular in mind?”

“A thirty-eight caliber.”

“I have two,” the pawnbroker said, opening the display case and taking out a revolver and an automatic. Billie frowned. Lester had not told her there would be a choice of models. “The Smith and Wesson revolver is seven hundred dollars,” she was told, “and the Colt automatic is eight hundred.”

Beginning to feel nervous, and silently thinking what a complete ignorant asshole Lester was, Billie said, “I'll take that one,” pointing to the Colt.

“Of course. You realize that California has a three-day waiting period before you can actually take the weapon with you.”

Now she recalled the rest of the ignorant asshole's instructions. “Oh? I was told by a friend that the waiting period could be waived for a thousand-dollar fee.”

The pawnbroker frowned. “Who, may I ask, is the friend who told you that?”

“His name is Lester Dragg. He's in Folsom.”

“Ah, yes. I did receive a message about him. You are, ah, prepared to pay cash for the purchase and the waiver fee?”

“Yes.” Billie looked down at the display again. “What's that little one over there in the corner?”

“Oh, that. That's a Guardian twenty-five caliber automatic. Not very powerful. Only holds six shots—”

“I'll take that also.”

“It's two-fifty. And you'll have to pay for another waiting-period waiver, you know.”

“That's okay. I'd like bullets for both of them too.”

“Well, I'm not licensed to sell ammunition. I have some of my own, however, and I can load each piece for you for fifty dollars. Let's see now, that comes to thirty-one hundred dollars even. You did say cash, didn't you?”

“Yes.” Billie stepped over to another counter, turned her back on the pawnbroker, and counted the exact amount from her purse. Moments later, she left the pawn shop with the two loaded pistols in a plain brown bag.

* * * *

The night of the escape was upon them.

Cory packed a few belongings in a duffel bag and retrieved his service revolver, a .357 Ruger GP-100, which he was required to wear only when assigned to perimeter duty outside the walls of the prison, or on tower duty inside.

Out at his car, he put the pistol under the driver's seat and spread a vinyl raincoat on the ground behind the car. With a pen light, he scooted under the car and located one of the tracking devices Hardesty had attached to the car's muffler. Removing it, he scooted back out, tossed the device into some bushes, and drove off to pick up Billie Sue at the Motel 7.

In her room at the motel, Billie had also packed a small overnight bag she had and put the little Guardian automatic in a pocket of her coat. She wrapped the larger pistol she had bought for Lester Dragg in a newspaper which she put into a grocery bag that contained a six-pack of beer. Then she sat down to wait for Cory.

Hardesty, wearing his usual service revolver as well as a .32 caliber backup pistol in an ankle holster, drove his own car onto the prison staff parking lot just as Deputy Warden Duffy exited the administration building and came onto the lot to join him. As Duffy got into Hardesty's passenger seat, he unobtrusively adjusted himself to accommodate the pistol he had stuck in the waistband of his trousers.

“Everything okay?” he asked nervously.

“Everything's fine,” Hardesty replied quietly. He drove off the lot and turned onto the highway toward Sacramento.

As they drove, Duffy looked off in the distance at the night lights just coming on at the prison dairy farm where Lester Dragg had started work that day, and from where, with Duffy's help, he was probably blithely escaping at that very moment. Duffy's mouth went dry. From an inside coat pocket he took a flask and drank from it.

“What the hell's that?” Hardesty asked gruffly.

“Scotch,” Duffy said. “Want some?”

“No, thanks,” Hardesty said. “But you go ahead.” Let the fool get smashed, he thought. Be easier to handle him that way.

Reaching to the dashboard, Hardesty turned on the tracking monitor and watched its small screen fade from black to blue. Adjusting a dial, he watched a blip materialize on the location of the apartment building where Cory Evans lived. The blip settled and remained steady. Hardesty frowned. Cory's car was not moving yet.

* * * *

Cory drove up to the door of Billie's room at the motel. Watching for him out the window, she came out at once and he opened the trunk to put her bag in with his duffel.

“What's that?” he asked, bobbing his chin at the grocery bag she carried.

“Six-pack of Budweiser,” she said. “I figured we could drink one each and give the rest to Lester.”

They got in the car. Billie took two bottles of beer into the front seat and set the grocery bag on the backseat. Cory started the car and pulled away from the motel. “Can't say I'm going to miss that dump,” Billie muttered to herself.

Twilight had settled and low clouds were hanging in the sky like gauze. The first light raindrops hit the windshield and Cory turned the wipers on low. “Looks like Lester might get a little wet walking to the highway,” he said.

Billie Sue glanced at him but said nothing.

* * * *

Hardesty was watching the blip on the monitor. It was still not moving. Glancing down at the car's digital clock, he wet his lips. Something was wrong. He began turning the monitor's frequency dial.

“What's the matter with that thing?” Duffy asked testily. “Isn't it working?”

“It's working fine,” Hardesty snapped. “Have another drink.”

Still north of Sacramento, they now passed the rest stop where Cory and the woman were to pick up Lester Dragg. Hardesty drove another mile, then turned into a truck stop and parked.

Leaning forward, he manipulated the frequency dial more slowly and a few seconds later was able to pick up a new blip, this one moving away from

Sacramento toward them. It was a signal from the second tracking device Hardesty had placed on Cory's car.

That son of a bitch, he thought. He crossed me. Hardesty's jaw tightened. Okay. Fine. Now there wouldn't be a split of any kind.

He would leave four people locked in that storage garage.

* * * *

At the rest stop up the highway, Cory pulled his Buick into a spot next to several cement picnic benches and turned off the headlights.

“How will he know we're here?” he asked Billie.

“He'll know.”

“How do we find him?”

“He'll find us.”

At that moment, a knuckle rapped on the passenger-side window. Billie unlocked the door and got out. In the subdued light of the rest stop, Cory saw her embrace a slim figure with a head of thick black hair combed straight back. “Hey, baby,” he heard a male voice say.

“Hey, sugar,” Billie answered. “Get in the backseat; there's a little surprise for you.”

As Lester got in the backseat, Billie slid back in front next to Cory. “Okay, let's go,” she said. “Cut over to Route Ninety-nine and head south.”

* * * *

Hardesty watched the blip of Cory's car as it drove away from the rest stop and swung left onto the state highway going south. Calculating that he was about six miles behind Cory, he pulled back onto the highway and eased down on the accelerator to catch up.

“That gadget working all right now?” Duffy asked edgily from the passenger seat.

“Working just fine.” Hardesty threw the deputy warden a disgusted look. Couldn't depend on anybody anymore, he thought. “Have another drink, why don't you? Help you to relax.”

“Don't mind if I do,” Duffy said, retrieving the flask from his inside coat pocket again. As he drank, he felt the reassuring grip of the pistol sticking out of his waistband. Nobody was going to pull anything over on him, he thought, a little woozily. No, sir.

Outside, the pesky rain increased to a steadier downpour. Hardesty turned the car's windshield wipers on to high. The slap-slap-slap of the rubber blades made Duffy feel a bit drowsy. His eyelids lowered a little.

* * * *

In Cory's car, the modicum of tension that had risen when Lester Dragg first got in had dissipated after they reached Highway 99 and turned south. Lester was drinking his second beer and, having found the gun Billie Sue had bought for him, had it tucked securely under his left thigh.

Billie had turned on the radio, found a Country & Western station, and was humming along to a Freddy Fender song about wasted days and wasted nights.

“How far are we going?” Cory asked Billie Sue after a bit, as if he did not already know. Lester answered for her.

“Don't you worry about how far we're going, Mr. Screw,” he said with a loud belch. “Jus’ keep on driving.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Damn straight on that. You ain't the boss out here.”

The rain had increased by now to a heavy downpour, and Cory kept his speed at 55 as they kept driving, monotonously, past the next off-ramp, past the next lights up ahead in the California rural darkness, and then through stretches of nothing but the wet night.

Cory had checked his odometer at the rest stop where they picked up Lester, so he knew when they passed the off-ramp for Stockton that they were within a half-hour or so from their destination. That was confirmed by a highway sign just outside Stockton that read: modesto 25.

Inside the car, the windshield began to steam up from the body heat of the occupants.

* * * *

Hardesty by now had come up to within a dozen car lengths of Cory's Buick, and was following in a trained law-enforcement pattern of non-detection observance: a frequent change of lanes in the flow of traffic, occasionally exiting the highway at an off-ramp, then crossing the underpass street and reentering via an on-ramp where he accelerated just enough to again come within range of Cory's blip on the monitor.

Next to him, Duffy's head was leaning against the passenger window and he was not quite snoring but breathing heavily. Drunken fool, Hardesty thought. He began to contemplate pulling over, putting a round into Duffy's temple, and dumping him on the side of the road. He even considered killing them all: four bodies in that storage garage, locked in with a bicycle lock he had purchased that morning—hell, it might be weeks before anybody noticed the stench and found them. By then he would be living easy down in Argentina, where there was no extradition treaty with the U.S.—assuming that he was ever even connected with the bodies.

Suddenly, as he was considering his options, Hardesty saw Cory's blip leave the highway at an off-ramp next to a sign that read: modesto next right.

I'll be damned, he thought, as he approached the same off-ramp. That was the town where the bank heist went down. Could it be that the money never left town?!

Hardesty shook his head in disbelief.

* * * *

Lester Dragg directed Cory along the outer limits of Modesto to a small industrial district of modest factories and warehouses, until they came to a cul-de-sac, where he had Cory turn in.

A block down, at the dead end, was a high cyclone fence with a slider gate in its center. Above the gate was a sign: security storage rentals. Just below the sign and to the left was a solid concrete post housing an infrared, touch-sensitive digital keypad under a two-inch thick Plexiglas cover. All of it was brightly lit by an overhang of sulphur lights.

“Pull up to the gate, screw,” Lester Dragg ordered Cory. “Keep the motor running.” Stepping out of the car, he showed Cory the .38 automatic he now held in one hand. “Don't try anything funny, see? I mean business.”

“I'm cool,” Cory replied. “All I want is my hundred grand.”

As Lester walked over to the entry post, Cory eased his left hand down to the Ruger pistol under the seat.

Billie noticed his movement but said nothing. She rested one hand on her purse where she had the .25 caliber Guardian.

* * * *

When Hardesty saw that Cory had pulled into a dead end cul-de-sac, he immediately turned off his headlights and parked. Scoping out the situation in front of him, he made a quick, trained assessment that he had to act quickly or chance losing Cory's car inside the security fence, which might or might not have an exit gate at the rear.

Next to him, Duffy was in what looked to Hardesty to be a drunken stupor; he was slouched down in the passenger seat, wheezing quietly through his nose. Take care of him later, Hardesty decided, and got out of the car, not closing the door all the way to avoid noise.

Stealthily, in the cover of shadows, he moved in a low crouch toward the security fence, service revolver in hand.

* * * *

At the gate post, Lester touched a series of imprinted squares on the Plexiglas that were directly over the infrared keyboard numbers below it. With each touch, a soft beep sounded. After selecting eight numbers, Lester touched a side key marked: enter. As soon as he did, a buzzer sounded and the gate began to slide open.

Lester hurried back to get in the car.

* * * *

Hardesty, by now, had moved as close to Cory's car as he could get without exposing himself to the gate's sulphur lights. The air around him was humid and he was sweating.

Taking a chance that the three people in Cory's car were all watching the sliding gate and none of the car's rearview or side-view mirrors, and crouching as low as he could, he crossed the deserted street and dashed into shadows on the opposite side. Remaining totally still, watching the car until he was certain his movement had not been detected, he took a deep breath, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped his face clean of perspiration.

Calculating the distance to the gate, wondering how long it remained open after each code entry, he moved forward inch by inch toward the edge of the sulphur lights’ reach.

* * * *

When the gate was all the way open, Lester Dragg ordered, “Go! Inside, make a right turn!”

Cory shifted gears and eased the Buick over a speed bump on the entry drive. Once inside, as ordered, he turned right.

“Go down to Section D and turn left,” Lester said. “You'll see the signs.”

Cory handled the steering wheel with one hand as he slipped the Ruger up with his other and rested it against his left thigh.

* * * *

Hardesty saw Cory's car make its right turn inside the fence, and seconds later he heard a buzzer again and the gate began to slide closed.

Straightening from his crouch, he broke into a run, pistol at the ready in case he was seen, and sprinted toward the moving gate. It seemed to be moving faster than he was running.

Son of a bitch! he thought. Fresh sweat broke over his forehead and ran past the corners of both eyebrows into his eyes, stinging.

The gate lumbered on, like a train.

Hardesty's heart pumped like a jackhammer.

* * * *

After they'd turned into Section D of the facility's interior, and driven about fifty yards past a succession of identical closed garage doors, Lester told Cory to stop.

“Pull up in front of number two-seventy-six there.”

Cory eased the Buick to a stop and turned off the ignition, leaving the key in it.

“Okay, get out, screw.” Lester touched the back of Cory's head with the gun. “Don't try nothing funny.” In the rearview mirror, Cory saw Lester look over at Billie Sue. “You get out too, sugar.”

As Cory opened the driver's door and slid out, he quickly slipped the Ruger under his coat into his waistband.

“Stand over there,” Lester ordered Cory. “Come over here, sugar,” he told Billie. He handed her his gun. “Keep him covered—”

Lester turned his attention toward a large combination padlock on the garage-door handle.

Billie stood with Lester's gun pointed at Cory. Her expression was stern, fixed in concentration; her eyes met with Cory's in the pale light of a single bulb above the garage door. Remaining where he had been told to stand, Cory shrugged and held his hands out, palms up. Whatever.

With a sharp click, Lester jerked the big padlock open. “All right!” he said triumphantly. Throwing the latch, he rolled open the overhang door and a light came on inside.

The eyes of all three turned to look.

Two dust-covered gray canvas sacks lay there, padlocked at one end, with one of them slit partly open to reveal bundles of bank-banded currency.

A million two.

* * * *

Hardesty watched from the end of the Section D drive.

He had barely made it through the closing gate, the weight of which had impacted his right elbow, causing, he was certain, a minor fracture. It hurt like hell. But he was not about to let it bother him. Switching the gun to his left hand, he had taken off at a trot in the direction Cory's car had turned.

When he reached Section D and looked down the drive of identical garage doors, he saw Cory's car parked partway down, in front of a square of light shining out from what appeared to be an open garage door.

Bingo, he thought.

A million two.

Holding his right elbow tucked close to his side to try to relieve the throbbing pain of the fracture, he began walking at a brisk pace toward the square of light, perspiration once again wetting his forehead and his palms. When he was almost there, he paused, knelt down, placed his pistol on the ground, and briskly rubbed the palm of his left hand on his trousers leg to get it completely dry. Having to hold the gun in his left hand, he did not want it slippery as well. Having come this far, everything had to be perfect now, no slip-ups.

Pleased with himself for being so careful, Hardesty stood back up, gun in hand, and cautiously resumed his approach. But after a few steps, he froze and flattened himself in the foot-deep inset of one of the garage doors.

Someone had emerged from the lighted open garage door.

* * * *

Cory, ordered by Lester, came out of the garage, reached into the Buick, and pressed the button to pop open the trunk. Seeing Cory's duffel and Billie's overnight bag, Lester threw Billie a suspicious look.

“Planning a little trip with this screw, sugar?” he asked tightly. “Gonna leave poor Lester behind, maybe?”

To Cory he snapped, “Get that junk out of there—quick!” Cory removed the two pieces of luggage and set them inside the garage. “Now put the two bank sacks in the trunk and get back inside,” Lester directed.

* * * *

Peering from his concealment at what was going on, Hardesty saw the money sacks put into Cory's trunk, and the two men move back into the garage.

Now or never, he decided.

Moving quickly, he reached the open garage door and confronted the three people inside.

“Freeze!” he shouted, leveling his gun. “FBI!” To Lester he ordered, “Drop that weapon, Dragg!”

Lester stopped cold, the gun at his side, but he did not drop it.

Hardesty stepped over to Billie Sue and jerked her next to him, pointing his gun at her head. “Drop that weapon, Dragg, or I'll kill your woman!”

Lester laughed and raised his gun. “Go ahead, kill her. I don't need the lying bitch no more.” Aiming at Hardesty, he squeezed the trigger.

The automatic's hammer came down on an empty chamber.

Looking aghast at the gun, Lester rapidly worked the trigger three more times before realizing in horror that the gun was not loaded.

Then it was Hardesty who laughed. “You brainless, lowlife moron,” he said, pushing Billie Sue aside. “You're too stupid to go on living.”

Hardesty shot Lester twice, dead center in the chest, exploding his heart, slamming his body back eight feet, dropping him like a man hit by a truck. Then he turned his gun on Cory, who was reaching for his Ruger. But before Hardesty could fire, his head was hit at close range as Billie Sue shot him in the temple with her Guardian 25.

Cory had his Ruger out now, and he and Billie Sue faced each other with guns leveled. They stood like that for a long, taut moment. Then Billie Sue spoke.

“Let's get the hell out of here.”

“Let's,” said Cory.

* * * *

The sliding gate opened automatically from the inside for vehicles wanting to exit. Cory eased the Buick out, their own luggage back in the trunk with the million two, the bodies of Lester and Hardesty securely locked behind them in Unit 276, the rental on which, Billie Sue pointed out, was paid up three months in advance.

We're free and clear now, Cory thought. Billie was snuggled up beside him. There was nothing else to worry about. All the pieces were now in place.

All the pieces—

Except for Duffy.

The first bullet hit the Buick's windshield, shattering glass in Billie's face. She screamed.

The second shot was low, smashing into the car's radiator. Cory swerved and slammed sideways into the back of a van parked in front of a warehouse. When the Buick came to a jolting halt, steam gushing from under the hood, a third bullet burst the driverside window and grazed the back of Cory's neck before ploughing into a seat back.

Cory saw Duffy now, stumbling toward the car like a drunken madman, brandishing a pistol and shouting.

“You don't put anything over on me!” he yelled. “No, sir!”

Kicking open the driver's-side door, Cory rolled out, firing his own weapon. The two men exchanged shots, one of Duffy's rounds striking Cory in the right side, an in-and-out hit that spun him over but did not bring him down, while four of Cory's bullets laced Duffy's chest, sending him flailing back like a rag doll.

Struggling over to the car, Cory's sense of smell was hit with the acrid fumes of gasoline. One of Duffy's shots had hit the gas tank.

In the car, Cory found Billie sobbing, hands covering her face, blood trickling down between her fingers. “Come on, baby,” Cory said, taking one of her arms and dragging her across the seat.

Then another shot cracked through the silence and hit the car. Duffy, not quite dead, had managed to fire one final round, and it hit the Buick's already punctured gas tank. The rear of the car exploded in a burst of growling flame.

“Come on, baby!” Cory said again, desperately urgent now. As he got Billie almost out, another, smaller eruption of flame licked out and caught both of them, searing the sides of their faces, singeing their hair.

Limping, half-dragging Billie, Cory managed to get them just far enough away not to be blown up when the rest of the Buick exploded.

Along with the million two in its trunk.

* * * *

Sirens began piercing the humid air as police cruisers, fire engines, and ambulances converged on the cul-de-sac from all directions. On a narrow side street a block away, Cory managed to walk Billie along a row of older frame houses, where porch lights were being turned on and people were coming out to see what was going on.

At the end of the block, where the houses stopped and only the dark night remained, Cory paused where an old man in a wheelchair sat looking toward the fiery sky above the cul-de-sac.

“Say, mister,” Cory asked, “does this street lead out of town?”

“This street?” the old man replied, peering curiously at their injured faces. “This street don't lead nowheres. This street ends at the cemetery.”

Cory grunted quietly, said, “Thanks, mister,” and laboriously moved on.

As he and Billie went on their way, the old man saw blood on the sidewalk and started wheeling toward a police cruiser that pulled up to block the other end of the street.

* * * *

They rested on the grassy ground next to the large headstone of a grave about twenty yards inside the cemetery. There was enough light from a full moon for them to see each other.

Billie's face was shredded on both sides from the windshield glass, and burned on one side from the gasoline fire, and most of her hair was burnt off one side of her head.

Cory's face and hair were seriously charred on one side, his neck wound painfully seared by the fire, and his stomach gunshot wound bubbling air-blood past the hand he held pressed tightly over it in a futile attempt to stop the flow. He had looked at his bloody hand under a streetlight just before they entered the cemetery and seen that the blood was streaked with black. The bullet had nicked his liver.

As they sat with their backs against the cold surface of the headstone, two police cruisers pulled up at the cemetery entrance and four officers got out and moved cautiously onto the grounds.

“I don't want to go on, Cory,” Billie managed to choke out.

“Neither do I, baby,” Cory replied.

They both drew their guns.

Copyright © 2012 Clark Howard

[Back to Table of Contents]

Fiction: HEY DAD
by Joyce Carol Oates

Booklist's description of Joyce Carol Oates's latest novel, Mudwoman, as “extraordinarily intense, racking, and resonant” could be applied to so much of her work. She is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities and many of the nation's other top literary honors. She is also the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University. This new story makes use of an academic setting and picks up on a recurring theme in her work: what Booklist calls “the persistence of the past."

Almost wouldn't recognize you. And you wouldn't recognize me.

Your face is gaunter than your photo-face. Your eyes are hidden by dark-tinted glasses. The goatee looks like Brillo wires pasted on your jaws.

Hey Dad: Congratulations!

Hey Dad: Me.

I'm in the third row. I'm the face with the smile.

Hey Dad this is coincidence.

You are one of five Honorary Doctorate awardees.

I am one of two hundred twenty-three Bachelor of Arts awardees.

You are sixty-two years old. I am twenty-one years old.

We both look ridiculous don't we Dad? You in the black academic gown on this sweltering-hot day in May, in New England. Me in the black academic gown on this sweltering-hot day in May, in New England.

You in shiny black leather shoes, proper black silk socks.

Me in black leather sandals, sockless.

You in a folding chair on the commencement platform. First row of the select—President's party.

Me in the third row of two hundred twenty-three graduating seniors. Seated on the hard hard stone of the quasi-Greek amphitheater.

One of a small sea of black-robed kids. Some of us in T-shirts and swim trunks beneath the black robes ‘cause it's God damn hot in mid May on our little Colonial-college campus in New England.

Some of us hungover from last night's partying. Some of us high.

Some of us God damn sober.

Confronting the rest-of-our-lives, God damn sober.

But hey Dad: It's cool.

Don't worry that I will make a scene. That I will confront you.

Though I will be crossing the commencement platform twice: the first time, to be honored as the single Rhodes scholar this year from our college, and the second time, less dramatically, in a long stream of B.A. candidates, to have my hand shaken (again) by the (smiling) President as the B.A. degree is “conferred” upon us.

Though I will be crossing the platform in my black academic robe and mortar-board cap passing within eighteen inches of your knees.

Though I seem to be, if your biographies are accurate, your only son.

That is, biographies indicate that you are the father of two daughters, from your first, long-ago marriage.

Biographies of M V are respectful. Mostly noting your controversial work in ethics, political commentary. Briefly noting your several marriages. And no record of your numerous liaisons.

Hey Dad relax: I'm not the type to confront, or to confound. I have never been the type, I think.

(For instance, I have not sought out my half-sisters. Not yet.)

You have not shied away from public pronouncements that have caused dissension, controversy. Your books on the “ethics of killing"—war, abortion, euthanasia—that made your early reputation. Your books on “American imperialism” in the Third World, your scathing attacks on “colonization in new forms.”

You are the egalitarian, the friend of the oppressed. You speak for those in the Third World who can't speak for themselves.

You would not “colonize” anyone—of course.

Your (thinning, graying-coppery) hair is still long, in the style of the 1960s. Signaling to youth in the audience that, for all his academic distinction, and the Brillo goatee threaded with gray, M V is one cool dude.

Already when my mom knew M V in the long-ago, you were a person of distinction. And, for sure, one cool dude.

Not that Mom talked about you. Never.

Not that Mom thought about you. In recent years.

Not that my stepfather knew (much) about you.

Hey Dad this isn't about them. This is about me.

And this is about you.

This is about coincidence.

What a brainteaser to calculate the odds: not just M V receiving an honorary doctorate at his (unacknowledged, unknown?) son's commencement but the son existing.

For that hadn't been your intention, hey Dad?

It isn't an operation, it isn't surgery. It's a medical procedure. It's commonplace as going to the dentist.

And, later, losing patience: Don't be ridiculous. There is nothing to be frightened of.

I've been through this before. More than once.

Mom did not tell me any of this—of course. Mom is not the sort of person to burden others with bad memories of hers; Mom is precisely the sort of person who protects people from bad memories. And so, Mom did not ever tell me about you. When Mom spoke of her life of long ago when she'd been a graduate student at the distinguished Ivy League university in which you've been on the faculty for thirty years it was of the “intellectual ferment” of the time—the “exciting atmosphere"—"politically involved faculty.” Surely she was thinking of you and yet—she did not speak of you.

And there you sit—having slid your watch to a position on your wrist, where the heavy black sleeve of your robe has fallen back, so that you can see the time: slow slow passing of time until your name is spoken by the President, and you will rise from your seat to be honored.

No other reason for you to be here today. Of course.

Blinding sunshine! Heat.

The quasi-Greek amphitheater looks like it has been hacked out of stone in some primitive time of public ritual, sacrifice.

In a lurid TV melodrama I would have brought a weapon with me to commencement. A weapon hidden beneath the ridiculous black robe.

But this is not TV, and it is not melodrama. The mood is too measured, stately, and slow for melodrama.

Or so you would think—hey Dad?

“Pomp and Circumstance” played by the college orchestra. Loud, brassy, militant. Pompous old music but hey Dad, your mean old heart quickens, I bet!

Your picture in the papers, your squinting-smiling photo-face.

Maybe the face is wearing out, a little. Corroding from within.

Decades now you've been winning awards. Decades you've been a known figure.

Graduate students and post-docs and interns and assistants. And young untenured professors. You are their General. They do your bidding.

Hey Dad it's a strain, isn't it: listening to other people speaking.

But hey, no one is going to confront you here.

No one is going to accuse you.

She hadn't accused you. Maybe by the standards of that long-ago era you hadn't violated university policy. Maybe there were no rules governing the (sexual, moral) behavior of faculty members and their students in those days.

It just isn't going to happen—that we can be together. Not just now.

I will pay for the procedure. I can't accompany you for obvious reasons but I will pay and I suggest that you make arrangements to have it done out of town and not here; and I will pay for your accommodations there of course.

Which you did not, Dad. Because Mom refused.

Which pissed you off considerably, Dad. Because Mom refused.

Because Mom wanted me. If it meant pissing you off considerably, and losing you—still, Mom wanted me.

Hey Dad guess how I know this? Reading Mom's journal.

Mom's journal—journals—she's been keeping since 1986 when she was a freshman at the university first enrolled in your famous lecture course.

More than three hundred students in that legendary course.

The Ethics of Politics. From Plato to Mao.

But it was later, Mom met you. When Mom was a graduate student in your seminar. And Mom became your dissertation advisee—a coup for the twenty-three-year-old since it's known that M V chooses few students to work closely with him.

Hey Dad we know: you've forgotten Mom's name.

Or if you haven't forgotten the name exactly, you've forgotten Mom.

For there were so many of them, in your life. Available/vulnerable women.

Though Mom went on to teach in universities herself. Mom became a professor of American history and politics at a good state university and Mom has a career not so distinguished as yours but Mom too has published articles, reviews, and books.

Has, or had. Mom isn't working now, Mom is pretty sick.

Mom has been pretty sick for a while. Struggling as they say.

Determined to beat it as they say.

And maybe she will. Odds are a little better than fifty-fifty she can make it.

Which is why Mom isn't here this morning. Mom and my stepdad. Why I am alone here this morning.

With my friends here at college, I'm a popular guy. Girls like me pretty much, too.

Maybe I resemble you, in some ways. Raffish-good-looking and thick wavy hair—the way you once looked, Dad.

The way you once attracted girls and women with that “kindly” smile.

But no more. You're old now, Dad. Eyeing girls like any old-man lecher.

But mostly I'm not like you—in any way. Mostly I'm alone. My truest self is alone.

Of course Mom doesn't know that I've been reading her journals. Handwritten notebooks kept on a high shelf in her study. They are not for anyone's eyes except Mom's, it seems.

And if Mom dies—maybe my stepdad will read them. Or maybe Mom will have destroyed them.

Mom isn't famous or distinguished enough for the journals to be published, I think.

So you don't have to worry, Dad. Not that you're worried.

And not much chance is there, Dad?—you're going to peruse the columns of names of the class of 2012 in the commencement program you've been given. For no name listed there could interest M V in the slightest.

Even my name with its little red asterisk to indicate summa cum laude.

Hey Dad here's a question: If you had known me, if you'd foreseen me, including the summa cum laude and the Rhodes scholarship for next year at Oxford, would you have insisted upon the procedure, just the same?

No? Yes?

“The ethics of killing.” Did you ever wonder what it feels like to be the killed—hey Dad?

I have planned my strategy carefully this morning. The first time I'm called to the platform, I will shake the President's hand and pass by you without glancing at M V or any of the other honorary doctorates.

(Politely, you will clap for me. Without glancing at me. As politely, a glaze of boredom on your face, you will clap for other graduates singled out for such honors.)

But then, the second time, when I pass within eighteen inches of M V on the platform maybe I will pause, for just a moment—a “dramatic” moment.

In the phosphorescent heat of the sun. Nearing noon, the sun will be overhead. Even the shade beneath the stage canopy will be hot, humid. Perspiration will run in little trickles down your face, Dad. Inside your clothes, Dad.

You aren't a young man any longer. You may notice a shortness of breath, climbing stairs. A shimmering wave of vertigo at the top of the stairs. A dark place in your heart opening—I have been a shit. My life is shit. Whatever terrible death awaits me, I deserve.

I have rehearsed. I will leave nothing to chance. This is a “procedure"—a matter of strategy and execution.

After the President shakes my hand and the dean hands me my diploma and I am crossing the platform in a slow steady stream of Bachelor of Arts awardees all in ridiculous black robes flapping about our ankles and I pass no more than eighteen inches from M V in dark-tinted glasses and goatee I will stop, I will turn to you, and I will approach you, and among the buzz and hum of this part of commencement not many will notice. At first.

Whatever I may be carrying inside my black robe, I will have shifted in such a way that I can grip its handle. Tight.

And I will say—Hey Dad it's me.

Copyright © 2012 Joyce Carol Oates

[Back to Table of Contents]

Reviews: BLOG BYTES
by Bill Crider

* * * *

* * * *

If you're at all interested in espionage fiction, then have I got a website for you. It's Spy Guys & Gals (www.spyguysandgals.com/), and it has detailed information on 617 (so far) espionage series, encompassing 4,541 books. And when I say “detailed information,” I'm not kidding. Here's what the site delivers: the name of the author of the series, the name of the series character, the name of the series, the character's code name (if applicable), the character's nationality, the number of books in the series, the time span during which the books were published, and a description of the series. That's just for starters. You'll also find pictures of dust jackets and paperback covers, articles, and the webmaster's grades for each series. And more. If you start exploring this site, be sure you have plenty of time on your hands.

While we're on the subject of espionage, I should mention Double 0 Section (doubleosection.blogspot.com/), a blog devoted to “news and reviews of all things espionage—movies, books, comics, TV shows, DVDs, and anything else that comes up!” Where else could you find out that Elton John “is developing an animated feature from the Michael Buckley novel series NERDS, about kids who run a spy network from their elementary school"? Well, it's really Elton John's company, not Sir Elton himself, but you get the idea.

Craig Clarke presides over Somebody Dies (somebodydies.blogspot.com/), a blog with “Book reviews of crime, horror, and Western fiction ... with the occasional digression.” The blog's banner also says, “Support living authors!” Being a living author myself, I appreciate the sentiment. Lately, Clarke's been writing a bit about “re-Kindling” interest, that is, about older books that have become available again thanks to e-publishing. He's done reviews of Joe R. Lansdale's The Boar and of Douglas Clegg's novella, The Words, for example.

Read Me Deadly (www.readmedeadly.com/) is a group review blog. The reviewers are an interesting gang: Della Streetwise, The Maltese Condor, Sister Mary Murderous, Georgette Spelvin, and Periphera. They read and review crime fiction of all sorts, but they're also interested in reading other kinds of books and are willing to bring those into the conversation, too. In fact, the blog encourages conversation and offers readers a chance to sound off. There's also a reading challenge for 2012 if you'd like to take part. Check it out.

Copyright © 2012 Bill Crider

[Back to Table of Contents]

Reviews: THE JURY BOX
by Steve Steinbock

* * * *

* * * *

For those of us who love to read books, authors are special. They carry with them a certain mystique. The men and women who write the books we read, we imagine, aren't like the rest of us. So it's not surprising that real-life authors sometimes appear as fictional characters in fiction. This month we look at novels whose sleuths include Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Parker, Jane Austen, and Beatrix Potter, among others.

**** Susan Wittig Albert: The Tale of Castle Cottage, Berkley Prime Crime, $24.95. It's 1913, and nature writer Beatrix Potter, best known for her children's books, is preoccupied with finishing the illustrations for her new book and preparing for her upcoming marriage. The remodeling plans for her Castle Cottage are being undermined by a series of thefts at the cottage and in the village, followed by the death of the recently fired carpenter. Wittig Albert cleverly interweaves the story of Miss Potter with the parallel tale of the local wildlife and the mystery of a rare illuminated manuscript. This is the final of the planned eight-book series, but readers can cross their fingers (and paws) that the author is inspired to create more.

**** Stephanie Barron: Jane and the Canterbury Tale, Bantam Books, $15.00. While spending the autumn with her brother in Kent, Jane Austen finds herself in Canterbury near the Pilgrims’ Way, where “everyone is rich ... and each has his peculiar story to tell.” During celebrations surrounding the wedding of a beautiful young widow, the men set out for a pheasant hunt. But the game is cut short when they come across the corpse of a pilgrim on the historical trail. On closer inspection, the “pilgrim” is found to be Curzon Fiske, the first husband of the bride, believed to have died three years earlier. The drama that erupts is right up the alley of the young novelist in this well-told adventure.

**** Ed Ifkovic: Escape Artist, Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95. It's a little known fact that Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Edna Ferber grew up in the same town where Harry Houdini lived a generation earlier. In 1904 the world famous magician revisits Appleton, Wisconsin where nineteen-year-old Edna Ferber works as a cub reporter for the Appleton Crescent. Edna breaks protocol, first by interviewing the great escape artist, and then by investigating the disappearance of a spoiled and attractive high-school student. Already something of an outcast, Edna finds herself caught between scandal, familial responsibility, and curiosity until aid and encouragement comes from the great escape artist.

**** J.J. Murphy: You Might As Well Die, Obsidian, $7.99. Edna Ferber and Harry Houdini also make appearances in the second “Algonquin Round Table Mystery” featuring Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. (Murphy's novel makes mention of the interview between Ferber and Houdini that is fictionalized in Ifkovic's novel.) During a gathering at the Algonquin Club, a third-rate magazine illustrator hands Parker what later turns out to be a suicide note. Multiple madcap twists, chases, and witty exchanges later, Parker and her cohorts ask whether the suicide is a tragedy, a haunting, or a scam. Highly entertaining.

It's worth mentioning that three novels written by Daniel Stashower (author of award-winning scholarly works about Poe and Conan Doyle) featuring Harry Houdini are back in print. Stashower's “Houdini” mysteries—The Dime Museum Murders (1999), The Floating Lady Murder (2000), The Houdini Specter (2001)—are available in trade paperback for $12.95 each from Titan Books.

**** Gyles Brandreth: Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders, Touchstone, $14.00. In Brandreth's fifth adventure featuring Oscar Wilde and narrated by his friend Arthur Conan Doyle, the men find a severed hand, among other sinister objects, in Doyle's fan mail. Clues lead them to the Vatican where they find themselves enmeshed in a pontifical puzzle involving the tragic death of a child. Entertaining even when it taxes veracity.

****Michael Mallory, The Stratford Conspiracy, Top Publications, $12.95. While the Bard of Avon makes a brief appearance in a flashback, there are no real-life authors serving as detectives in this novel by EQMM veteran Mallory. Rather, it's the second novel-length appearance featuring Amelia Watson, the second wife to Dr. John Watson, chronicler and sidekick to Sherlock Holmes. The book features a phenomenal piece of stage magic performed at Madame Tussaud's, followed by a holiday to the birthplace of William Shakespeare where Amelia Watson unravels a conspiracy surrounding Shakespeare's true identity.

**** John C. Boland, Hominid, Perfect Crime Books, $15.95. Boland is another name familiar to regular readers of EQMM and AHMM. Hominid is a tightly written thriller involving genetic research and anthropology that veers close to science fiction and the supernatural. A team of archeologists working on an island off the Maryland coast uncover the crypt of a family murdered three hundred years earlier by colonial settlers who believed them to be devils. The team find themselves imperiled when the local islanders fall victim to a violent hysteria-inducing “virus” and back on the mainland they're pitted against a wealthy megalomaniac who seeks the power held in the ancient DNA. Also new from Boland is The Man Who Knew Brecht (Perfect Crime Books, $15.95), about the secrets that begin to surface when a Connecticut community sponsors a family of Jewish refugees from Russia.

Akashic Books’ Noir anthology series has been a success, with around fifty volumes so far. They include collections of stories set in cities and regions throughout the world. Two very different volumes recently arrived in the Jury Box, and both of them are a good indication of why the series has been so popular. Mumbai Noir, edited by Altaf Tyrewala (Akashic, $15.95 TPB, $24.95 HC), contains fourteen stories that run dark and deep, and provide readers with a unique look into diverse elements of the largest city in India, often taking us to the fringes of society. In “The Body in the Gali” by Smita Harish Jain, a police inspector travels to the brothels of Kamathipura and into the marginalized cross-gender hijra community in order to investigate a murder by castration. Set in Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Sonia Faleiro's “Lucky 501” is a vignette about a ritual castration that is disturbing in its elegance. Avtar Singh's “Pakeezah” has echoes of Somerset Maugham in its lyrical telling of a tale of lost love.

If Mumbai Noir is worth reading for the surprising and exotic new voices it offers, New Jersey Noir, (Akashic, $15.95 TPB, $24.95 HC), edited by Joyce Carol Oates, is worthwhile for nearly the opposite reasons. The list of contributors is much more familiar to Western readers, as are the urban Garden State settings. Yet the stories are no less striking. The collection includes S.J. Rozan's nonseries story “New Day Newark,” Jonathan Santlofer's “Lola,” a Hoboken tale of good art gone bad, and a shocking confession about the murder of Jimmy Hoffa penned by Barry Malzberg and Bill Pronzini. Interspersed among the stories are works of verse by noted poets including poet laureate Robert Pinsky. Among the more surprising treats in his collection are Bradford Morrow's “The Enigma of Grover's Mill” (about a crime instigated by Orson Welles’ 1938 “War of the Worlds” broadcast) and “Too Near Real,” a tale by Jonathan Safran Foer about a disgraced Princeton professor who loses himself in Google Maps.

Copyright © 2012 Steve Steinbock

[Back to Table of Contents]

Fiction: NAIN ROUGE
by Barbara Nadel

Barbara Nadel's new story is set in the heart of America, but she was born in the East End of London. A writer who formerly trained as an actor, she's particularly adept at capturing settings observed in her travels. She's the author of thirteen novels set in Turkey, a country she has visited regularly for more than twenty-five years. Her latest novel, Sure and Certain Death (Headline), travels back in time, to World War II and a mystery that appears to involve another Jack the Ripper.

Ritchie was as drunk as a sack when he first saw it out of the corner of his eye. Shuffling down Selden towards Woodward Avenue, it was talking and laughing to itself and knitting its tiny fingers in a nervous sort of way. Ritchie's first thought was that he was seeing things. It had been a long time since he'd put away anything apart from the odd bottle of Bud, much less nine, or was it thirteen, beefy great shots of vodka. His body was clearly in some sort of revolt at the violence he had done to it, but Ritchie's attitude was simply “Deal with it, bastard!” If his body didn't like the booze he'd tipped into it, then that was its problem. He had much bigger issues to deal with than whether or not his guts wanted to tolerate spirits, whether his arteries were hardening every time he put a cigarette into his mouth. Now he was seeing the freaking Nain Rouge, which could only mean one thing. He'd lost his mind.

Through all of Detroit's many and various vicissitudes, Ritchie Carbone had always managed, somehow, to cling on to his business. It wasn't much! It hadn't been much. A Coney Dog joint on Second Avenue. Detroiters loved Coney hot dogs. What wasn't to like? Nothing! So a lot of people had moved out of the Cass Corridor over the years? So there was a reason for that, namely, drug-fueled and gang-sanctioned violence, but hey, it was Detroit! Tough city, tough crowd. But then, as Ritchie knew very well, that only worked up to a point. When some little shit who called himself “Da Man” had pumped a bullet into old Freddie's head, that had been enough for Ritchie. That had been it—through, finished, gone. No more Coney dogs on Second and a whole heap of trouble about how he was going to explain how he voluntarily made himself unemployed to Welfare. And now, to top it all, a crazy little mythical freak laughing at him from underneath a lamppost. Instinctively, he put one hand up to his face so that it wouldn't be able to recognize him. But it was probably way too late.

* * * *

Of all the many badasses that Detroit had endured over the centuries, the Nain Rouge, or Red Dwarf, had to be the baddest. It was just legend, of course, but it was a legend that went back a long, long way. A small, childlike creature with brown fur, red boots, blazing eyes, and rotten teeth was said to have attacked Detroit's founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, in 1701. Shortly afterwards, Cadillac, a wealthy French businessman, suffered a downturn in his fortunes from which he never recovered. His altercation with the Nain is said to have rocked Cadillac to his core. But then the Nain Rouge was a creature that he would have recognised from his native country. A variety of lutin, the Nain Rouge was a common folklore figure in the myths and legends of Normandy. Ritchie Carbone knew it from the annual Marche du Nain Rouge, an old Detroit custom that had been revived in 2010.

His buddy, Jigsaw, had told him about it first. Jigsaw had been a Ford employee back in the day, now he made his living ripping copper and other metals out of derelict buildings to sell for scrap. He'd walked into Ritchie's place almost a year ago and said, “You heard they gonna banish the Nain this year?”

Ritchie had frowned, he remembered it well. “What? You mean they gonna have that march where everyone gets dressed up so they can fool some thing that don't even exist into walking into a fire?”

“That's the thing.” Jigsaw had had his usual, a large dog, fries, and a bottle of cherry pop. “Hey, Ritchie, this what you think they call gentrification?”

Reviving the old Marche du Nain Rouge was something that, to Ritchie, certainly smacked of middle-class people amusing themselves. Although most people with money had moved out of the city years ago, a new type of urban elite was trickling back into pretty old buildings like the Fyffes place on the corner of Adams Avenue and Woodward. They liked old customs like the banishing of the Nain Rouge every springtime. It was said that if the Nain could be banished on the nearest Sunday to the vernal equinox the city would be safe from misfortune for another year. Heaven knew it needed it.

Ritchie Carbone, in spite of having a father from Italy, was Detroit through and through. His mother, Agnes, could trace her ancestry back to Cadillac's French compatriots and her folks, the Blancs, had stayed in the city ever since. At fifty-eight, Ritchie had seen the riots of ‘67, the many vicissitudes of the automobile industry, the urban ruins, and, more latterly, the first little flickers of possible city renewal. He knew that the place needed every bit of help it could get and so if that included banishing an evil fantasy Being from its streets, then so be it. But that had been before that little shit, Da Man, had taken over large swathes of Second, before he'd put a gun to Freddie's head and pulled the trigger before Ritchie had even had a chance to consider his offer of “protection.”

Still with his hand in front of his face—to let the Nain see you was dangerous lest it come back sometime to take its revenge—Ritchie yelled at the creature. “Hey, you!” he said. “Get out of my city! Don't you think we got enough problems, huh?”

But the little bastard just laughed, bared its rotten teeth at him, and then began to scamper off at speed towards Woodward. Why Ritchie Carbone decided to stagger off after the Nain wasn't really clear to him at the time, apart from the notion that he was generally angry. But this was actually at Da Man as opposed to the mythical Nain. Not that that mattered a bean! Ritchie drained his last shot of vodka down to the very last drop and then he got up and ran.

* * * *

Laughing all the while, the little freak quickly got to Woodward and then turned right. It was, or appeared to be, heading back into the city. Ritchie, adamant that that shouldn't be allowed to happen, followed. So it was just some supernatural fairy or whatever; if it meant to sock what remained of Detroit in the guts once again, he was going to give it a hammering it would never forget. His mind had clearly gone: What the hell if he smacked around some bastard that wasn't really there! What did he have left to lose anyway? The business had gone, his wife had left him, the freaking gangstas had even shot his freaking dog, for God's sake!

Apart from the odd bus, the cars on Woodward seemed to fall into two categories: junk wagons just about held together by rust and great big gleaming gangsta-mobiles brimming with blacked-out windows, guns, and the odd diamond-encrusted finger glancing through the windshield. Someone like Ritchie couldn't relate to any of that! Apart from his friendships with junkies like Jigsaw and Black Bottom Boo, he'd always been a straight-down-the-line, middle-of-the-road kind of person. Being white in a majority black neighborhood had never bothered him. He'd got on with everyone, just like he had when Cass had been largely white. God rest her soul, his momma had even had him take Coneys up to the hookers on Cass Avenue when he was little more than an infant.

“Those girls gotta make a dollar just like everyone,” Agnes Carbone had said whenever she'd made a bag of food up for the ladies of the night. White, black, Jew, or Gentile, she'd never cared and neither had Ritchie—until Da Man had come into his life. All swagger and crazy jewelry, tooled-up homies and attitude, Da Man had started their “conversation” by calling Ritchie “white trash.” For the sake of his customers, as well as himself, he'd taken it. Until Da Man had shot Freddie.

There'd been no need to kill the dog like that! Hound was old and blind and he hadn't known what the hell had been going on. The customers had high-tailed out, screaming. Not long afterwards, Da Man and his crew left as well, but not before they'd told Ritchie that he had to somehow find a thousand dollars a week to pay for his own “protection.” It had been after that that Ritchie had impotently thrown all of his hot dogs, his bread, and his French fries after the gangstas. They'd just landed on the sidewalk, the waste inherent in their disposal making him want to weep. Since when had he become this hopelessly vulnerable and impotent old man?

The Nain started to cross over Woodward, dodging between the cars and laughing uproariously as it did so. Sometimes a Focus or a Hummer or a Jeep would look as if it was about to barrel into the Nain, but it would always, somehow, evade a collision and come up smiling. At one point it even climbed onto the hood of some great big gangsta-mobile and tapped its clawed fingers against the windshield, but then it slid off again and landed on the tarmac, giggling. The car went on its way, its driver seemingly oblivious to the danger he or she had been in.

Still on the sidewalk, Ritchie swayed on rubber legs, looking for a gap in the traffic. In New York just crossing anywhere would have had him up for jaywalking but in Detroit nobody cared. He launched himself out into the wide road just before he got to Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard. The Nain, across Woodward now, flicked him the finger and Ritchie, at that moment, decided that real or not, the Nain Rouge was history. Even if he couldn't prove his manhood with some teenage gangsta, he could vent his spleen on this little shit!

* * * *

The Nain Rouge skipped, hopped, and babbled its way into the old middle-class professional district of Brush Park. Once a place where doctors, attorneys, auto executives, and lumber barons lived, Brush Park was now a wasteland of specters, a graveyard for old houses that were rotten, abused, and haunted by the shades of lifestyles long since over with. Ritchie Carbone remembered it well. He'd had an old grade-school friend from Brush Park, a Jewish attorney's son called Ron Sachs. His family had moved out in the sixties and Ron had eventually gone to Harvard. Last Ritchie had heard of Ron, he'd been practicing law in L.A. Good for him.

Up ahead, the Nain stopped outside the moonlit remains of a Gothic mansion and bent over double. Then it pulled its pants down and it farted at him. Infuriated by its rudeness, Ritchie could feel his blood pressure go through the roof as his head began to pound with anger and with booze and with the unaccustomed exercise he was getting. His father had died from a stroke back in the ‘80s, he'd have to be careful. But what for? The Nain, fart over, shuffled on, grunting and babbling and laughing through its awful, cracked teeth.

What for? Ritchie thought again. What am I breathing, what am I existing, what am I living for? Even before he'd sold the business his marriage had been on the skids. Maria, his wife, had been so over serving Coneys, she'd run off with a professional poker player back in 2008. Now, apparently, Maria and this Ralph were holed up somewhere outside Reno. Her kids wouldn't see her, but then neither Kathy nor Frank came to see Ritchie that often either and he was the so-called “injured” parent. No one lived in Detroit anymore, no one. Old Jigsaw had offered to buy him some apparently very fierce German Shepherd off some junkie from Eastern Market, but Ritchie had passed. Freddie hadn't been a guard dog, he'd been a friend. Ritchie didn't want to have some beast he was terrified of stopping him from leaving his apartment.

Ritchie followed the Nain onto John R Street and then stopped to catch his breath. This part of Brush Park was completely gone to urban prairie. There was nothing. No wrecked houses, no vegetation—apart from grass—and no objects but litter. People reported seeing skunks in such places, even coyotes. The nothingness of it made Ritchie shudder. This was a district where he'd played as a kid, where he'd had tea with Ron Sachs and his family in his dad's elegant, turreted mansion. All gone. He looked around for the Nain and just saw a void. Even the creature that traditionally presaged doom for the city couldn't stand this. Maybe Brush Park represented “job done” to the evil little freak. After all, the destruction of Detroit was its final aim. Over the centuries since Cadillac founded the city, almost every disaster that had befallen it had been heralded by a sighting of the Nain. Back in ‘67, during the riots, there had been a lot of sightings. But then Detroit had survived; it had changed too. Black folks had had enough and so they'd expressed their anger and they'd forced change. Ritchie had cheered them all the way. So what Da Man had done to him, came still harder. As he'd tried to tell the boy at the time, "This white trash has always been on your side!" But it hadn't meant squat. Not to Da Man or to any of his crew.

There was a frigid late February moon in the sky and the frost on the ground was so hard it was almost ice. Cold as unwilling charity, it was too bitter to snow and all but the most desperate addicts, the dying junkies, the most deprived of the deprived, were inside their homes, their squats, or their crack shacks. No one was about and the silence, with the exception of the blood pounding through Ritchie's head, was complete. Come March it would be Nain banishing time again, unless, of course, he could get the little prick dealt with early. But it had disappeared. Not that it had ever really been anywhere in the first place. A product of vodka shots, the Nain was just a bile-scented vomit from his sick, tired, and bitter mind. It wasn't Detroit that was falling apart, at least not completely and not yet, but Ritchie Carbone. With no savings, no pension, and only a small apartment on Cass by way of assets, he was pretty much finished. With welfare he could exist, but he couldn't live. Ritchie's pa had died when he was only two years older than Ritchie was now and he'd been ready to go. Agnes, his wife, had been dead for almost thirty years by the time old Salvatore died when he was sixty. Ritchie still remembered how the old man had cried for her every single day.

Then something sharp jabbed into one of his buttocks and he turned around to see the Nain, its vile fingers jabbing into his butt. When he looked at it, it screamed with laughter and Ritchie, furious, said, “You are so freaking dead!”

* * * *

The Nain took off like a rocket back towards Erskine Street, whooping and grumbling and waving its disgusting furry arms in the air. It was having a high old time!

Heavy, breathless, and now seeing stars in front of his eyes, Ritchie Carbone pulled his unwilling body after it, his mind seething with visions of carnage and revenge. Nobody jabbed him in the butt! Not even Da Man and his crew had stooped to that. Some freaky thing from his subconscious wasn't going to get away with it! He ran after the thing and was about to follow it into some rotting house when he recognised exactly where he was. He stopped. At one time there had been two turrets attached to the old Sachs house, now there was only one. But it was definitely where Ron and his family had lived. Ritchie put a hand up to his chest as he gasped for air and tried to deal with the shock. Mrs. Sachs had been house-proud crazy! What would she make of the place now? Ritchie knew that it would break her heart and it made him want to cry. Mrs. Sachs had always made chocolate refrigerator cake, which had tasted so wonderful he'd closed his eyes with pleasure every time he'd eaten it. He'd been young and he and Ron had always talked about what they wanted to do when they grew up. Ritchie hadn't wanted to go into his pa's Coney Dog business, he'd wanted to be a U.S. Air Force pilot. Not just a broken dream, but one hammered out of him by necessity, by recession, by the systematic destruction of his city.

As he ran up the teetering staircase to the place where the Sachses’ front door had once been, Ritchie let out a howl like a wounded wolf. But then, suddenly, he stopped because it was in front of him. The Nain, scowling and spitting and yet at the same time laughing at him. He wanted to strangle it until it croaked.

It laughed one more time and then he was upon it.

* * * *

In spite of the cold, Ritchie slept better in that terrible skeleton of the old Sachs house than he'd done in his apartment for months. The Nain had fought, of course it had, it was well known throughout history for its viciousness. But he must have prevailed because he was still alive, even though his body hurt and he could see a spider's web of small scratches on his hands. Amazingly, to Ritchie, he'd had neither a stroke nor a heart attack either. Maybe killing the Nain had somehow, magically, restored him to full health again.

But then what did he mean by “killing the Nain"? Now that he was sober, there was surely no more craziness and therefore, no more Nain? He had a bunch of small cuts all over the backs of his hands, but then he probably got those scrambling up into the old Sachs place. How he'd remembered where to find the old house after so many years, especially drunk out of his gourd, was hard to know—until he remembered. He'd followed the Nain. But then that wasn't really possible, because the Nain Rouge didn't exist. It was a folktale.

Ritchie stood up and felt the rotted floorboards splinter underneath his feet. If he remembered correctly, the Sachses had had a basement. Ritchie moved as carefully as he could until he felt he was on a rather more solid footing. He'd just congratulated himself on surviving that particular ordeal when his eyes were caught by the sight of a tattered, miserable bundle underneath where a great bay window had once been. It was red, and although Ritchie knew that it couldn't possibly be the Nain, because the Nain didn't really exist, he knew that he feared it.

For what seemed like hours he tried to formulate an excuse he could give to himself for not seeing what the bundle contained. But he couldn't. On the one hand he never wanted to see what was in there, while on the other he wanted to do that more than anything else in the world. If it was the Nain, all his conceptions about reality and the world he thought he lived in would be shattered. If it wasn't...

As quickly as he could, before his fear consumed him, Ritchie reached down with one shaking hand and pulled the thing apart. His hands pulled at tattered velvet crimson material. A little dress.

The child was quite dead. Her face as white as milk, her long, thick, bright red hair carefully arranged around her head like a halo. Had he done that? Had he placed her carefully on the floor of the old Sachs house. Had he killed her?

Ritchie Carbone dropped to his knees as the sound of his own blood threatened to deafen him. She had to be seven years old at the most! A tiny child, probably the daughter of some spaced-out junkie, playing with him, taunting him, being the Nain Rouge and ... But had it been like that, or had he made her run?

He didn't know! He couldn't remember! Not like that, not in any detail! He looked down into her open-eyed, surprised little face and the hammering in his head became a wild, discordant cacophony. Suddenly weak, Ritchie Carbone tipped forward and then lay across the tiny body, twitching and unable to speak. Later, it snowed, and so neither of them was discovered for well over a week. A ghastly and macabre tableau that the police, when they attended, could only speculate about.

Come the vernal equinox, the Marche du Nain Rouge still managed to banish the little horror for another year. Everyone saw the evil dwarf burn, in effigy, on a big bonfire in Cass Park, just minutes from where Carbone's old Coney Dog place used to be. A lot of the revelers said that it was a pity there was nowhere left in the Cass Corridor to get a decent Coney anymore. But then they all agreed that it had probably been meant to be. Why, after all, should anyone get a lovely hot-dog treat after burning even a mythical being, even in effigy, to death?

Copyright © 2012 Barbara Nadel

[Back to Table of Contents]

Fiction: THE LONG SHADOW
by Peter Turnbull

Since this issue goes to press before the banquet at which the Edgar Allan Poe Awards are presented, we can't tell you whether Peter Turnbull's 2011 EQMM story “The Man Who Took His Hat Off to the Driver of the Train” (March/April 2011) has won in the category of Best Short Story, only that it is nominated. The compelling central character of that story appears here too, and in the Yorkshire writer's latest novel, The Altered Case (Severn House; June 2012).

Arresting.

It was the only word that the man could think of to describe the sensation. He was strolling past the shop window, not particularly paying any attention to the items for sale when he stopped in his tracks, arrested, as if his subconscious eye had seen it rather than his conscious eye. For there it was. About six inches in height, a grayish brown color, “dun” being the proper name for the hue, as was his favorite pub “The Old Dun Cow” in his village. And it was the figurine, the small chip at the base said so. The man stood and stared at it. It was like meeting an old friend, yet a friend with whom unpleasant experiences had been shared. So how many years had it been, eighteen, nineteen? He stood and smiled despite painful associations and said, “Well, well, well, and where have you been all this time?” It was Sunday, in the forenoon, the Minster bells peeled joyously over old York town, echoing in her alleyways and snickets, and the shop was shut. But tomorrow he would return. As soon as the shop opened he'd be there, like the alcoholics who can always be seen standing outside the pub doors in the city centre just before opening time, then when the doors are flung open they stampede to the bar, happy to drink stale beer which has spent the last twelve hours in the pipes. Tomorrow he'd be at the shop, he'd be the first customer over the threshold, anxious to buy the figurine or he'd lose it forever.

Oh, and he'd bring the police with him. He thought he'd better do that. He thought he'd better ask the police to accompany him, because eighteen or nineteen years ago his parents had been murdered during the course of the theft of the dun figurine of Dresden china. During the same burglary, quite a few other items had been removed from the house. The robbers quite calmly carrying item after item out of the house, past the dead or dying bodies of his parents.

The man returned home, said little to his wife and nothing about the figurine, though their relationship was warm and well. He spent the evening in his study and that evening he retired early.

The following day, the last Monday of that merry month of May, the first people to enter Lashko's Antiques, Micklegate, close to the medieval walls of the ancient city, and met pleasantly by Julius Lashko, were a middle-aged, prosperous-looking man with a pleasant and fulfilled countenance and, behind him, a much younger man who was trim and muscular. Julius Lashko thought that they were father and son.

“Mr. Lashko?” The young man spoke, and instantly Lashko realized that the first two customers that day were not father and son. In fact, they were not even customers at all.

“Yes, ‘tis I.”

“I am Detective Constable Sant, City of York police. This is...”

“Mr.... “said the older man.

“Mr. Toucey,” Sant continued.

“Oh, yes. How can I help you?” A note of concern had crept into Lashko's voice. He was a small man with a pointed nose and a weak chin, wild, woolly hair. Sant felt that antiques dealers are not dissimilar to secondhand car dealers in that at one end of their way of business they nudge criminality, at the other they are above reproach. Sant, while keeping an open mind, felt that Lashko fell into the latter category.

“By allowing us to look at that figurine in the window.”

“Certainly,” Lashko said after a pause. He moved to the window and removed the figurine from where it stood between two Edwardian clocks and handed it to Sant. Sant handed it to Toucey, who held it lovingly.

“Yes,” Toucey said. “This is she all right, one of a pair, in fact ... it's the small chip on the base that identifies it. It's rare, eighteenth-century Dresden, quite valuable as it is, without the chip on the base and with her partner, she would be very valuable indeed.”

Lashko looked on in silence, paling slightly. Sant addressed him. “Mr. Lashko, can you tell me how you came to obtain this item?”

“I bought it from a man who came into the shop about ten days ago. He didn't seem suspicious.... I have to be careful, some shifty types come into the shop, usually young, usually in pairs, wanting to sell stuff that they don't know anything about. Clearly proceeds of a burglary. I decline to purchase from such people and notify the police as soon as they have left the shop. The police often pick them up before they get far. But the chap who offered me the figurine didn't fit that type at all. He came in a few days earlier, asked me to value it, something a thief wouldn't do. He also seemed to know something about it ... he correctly identified it, said it had been in his family for some time and he seemed reluctant to part with it. He was giving off all the right signals and I felt that I had no reason to be suspicious.”

“Well, unfortunately, we have reason to believe that it has been stolen.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry.” Lashko seemed to Sant to be genuine. “It does happen. I've been in the business a long time and there have been one or two previous occasions when, to my shame, I have found that I have bought a proceed from a burglary. It's an occupational hazard, and I lose, because having bought it, I have to surrender it and chalk up the loss.”

“As may be the case here. I'll have to take this into custody of the police in the first instance.”

“Of course,” Lashko nodded. “You'll let me have a receipt?”

“Yes. Did the person who brought it to you wear gloves at the time?”

“No. Not that I recall. But if you're hoping to lift fingerprints I think you'll be out of luck—the whole shop is given a good dusting every other day. Got to keep them dust free if I'm going to sell them.”

“It's worth a shot, though,” Sant placed the figurine in a large envelope. “Did you buy anything else from him?”

“Him? Oh, the man who sold me that, no I didn't ... don't think so ... certainly not a regular. There are people from whom I buy regularly, one lady is trickling antiques onto the market to provide herself an income in her declining years. I have one or two other customers like her. I also have customers who have money and are putting it into antiques and so, like all businessmen, I have my regular customers. But that chap was not one of them.”

“Can you describe the man?”

“Well, it's going back a few days now ... but I did see him twice and he did deal with me, unlike the sort who treat the shop as though it were a museum, just wander in and look around and then wander out again. That's another occupational hazard. So the man...” Lashko shut his eyes. “He was middle-aged ... slim build ... he hadn't put on a lot of weight as many men of his age would do. He had an appearance which I have heard described as ‘genteel shabby.'”

“Genteel shabby?”

“I take the expression to mean a person who has been used to the finer things in life but who has fallen on hard times and, while trying to keep up appearances, has become a little threadbare, but what was threadbare was still of the best quality. He had a calm manner, he seemed warm about the eyes ... he seemed emotionally fulfilled. He wore a ring.” Sant scribbled on his pad.

“Dark hair ... not graying and hadn't lost any of it. Had worn well for his years, he'd retained much of his youth. Can't think of anything else about his appearance to report ... carried himself proudly, erect, like a former soldier. He had a soft Yorkshire accent, as if moderated by education ... not a broad Yorkshire accent of the football terraces, but a softer version, of the golf club or the boardroom. Oh, he was left-handed. I paid him cash and he held out his left hand.”

* * * *

David Sant accessed the file on the murders of Daniel and Olivia Toucey of The Limes, Harrogate Road, York. He settled down with a mug of coffee in hand and read it. It was a story of a burglary and murders which he felt was passing brutal. The elderly couple, he a retired barrister, she a retired pathologist, lived in well-earned luxury at The Limes, a rambling mid-Victorian mansion, sufficiently large that when it was sold, it was sold to White Rose Care Ltd., who turned it into a nursing home for the elderly. White Rose Care Ltd. was, to the best of Sant's knowledge, one of the newly formed companies that had jumped onto the money-spinning bandwagon of “granny farming,” as a response to Britain's ageing population, a consequence of which was that Britain now had one pensioner for every person in employment, all of whom had to be provided for. But eighteen years ago, the Touceys lived in The Limes, having given a lifetime of unblemished public service and successfully brought up three children, by then away from home and consolidating their own careers. One fateful night in the autumn of the year, their house appeared to have been stormed by at least four men.... Mr. Toucey had died of a head injury; Mrs. Toucey had died of a heart attack induced by the shock and trauma. A removal lorry had then been reversed up the drive and the house stripped of all valuable contents. It was a crime which had shocked York and its environs. Hardly surprising, thought Sant, who at the time would have been just starting to read.

There was little for the police to go on. Known housebreakers all had good alibis, the felons had all worn gloves, no fingerprints “alien to the crime scene” had been found, and none of the items stolen from the raid had surfaced, until now, in the form of a six-inch-high figurine, dun coloured, of the finest Dresden porcelain.

So now where? Sant stood and walked over to the table by the window on which stood the electric kettle and the coffee jar and the teabags and the powdered milk and the mugs. He made himself a second mug of coffee. It was his pattern, when in the police station, to drink endless mugs of coffee, until he was awash with the liquid, and then he would drink nothing for the rest of the shift. He glanced out at the Ouse, glistening in the sun, the rowing skiffs and the pleasure boats. All that the police had to go on was the description of a man, who seemed down at heel, who might have come across the porcelain figurine quite legitimately, not knowing it to have been stolen, and who may not have had anything to do with the murder of the elderly Touceys, but also who would have been a youth eighteen years ago, probably hot-headed, whose local accent had been subsequently modified and softened by education.

* * * *

David Sant finished the shift at two p.m., signed out, and walked into the warm afternoon air, just the weather for a light jacket. He drove home to his cottage in Thornton le Clay, parked his car in the drive, and checked his telephone answering machine; just one message, from his wife, confirming his access visit to their son later in the week. When they had separated, he hadn't contested custody in return for a generous level of access. He had never seen the purpose of wanting custody; it was, he felt, a legal state which didn't affect the relationship between parent and child, but access did, for it was during the access that bonding occurred and relationships developed. In the evening, he felt the urge to go for a short walk.

A short walk to the Queen's Head, which stood on the edge of the village green and had an ancient pair of stocks outside, sometimes used for charity fund-raising events, as had recently happened when the community constable had been placed in the stocks for an hour so that the villagers could throw cream cakes (donated by the baker) at him, one pound for five cakes. Fifty pounds had been raised to help keep the village play school open.

That evening, the pub was quiet, as it most often was on Monday evenings, a few old boys playing dominoes, the landlord (who had amply rewarded the good humour of the community constable with not a few pints of strong beer once the cream had been washed off) involved in a game of darts, leaving his wife to pull the pints. Not an onerous task, for on Mondays the frequency of pint- pulling is perhaps one every ten minutes. Sant asked for a pint of Timothy Taylor and stood at the bar. He pondered the postcards which had been sent by the regulars and enjoyed the low hum of conversation, the rattle of dominoes, the thud of darts into cork, and in the winter months there would be the crackling of the log fire. This, he felt, was how a pub should be; not for him the crush and loud music of the city-centre pubs.

“I don't believe him,” Sant said to himself, but loudly so.

“Sorry, love?” The landlady smiled at him.

“Nothing.” Sant returned the smile. “Nothing at all. I was just speaking aloud.”

“Don't believe who, love?” For the landlady of the Queen's Head was like a dog with a bone when gossip was concerned. She was, in fact, considered second only to the post mistress as a source of gossip. She was quite good at it too, so it was thought, and well she ought to be, because before she and her husband had taken the pub they had had the post office in the neighbouring village.

“Oh, just this fella,” Sant said, thinking that he'd get a better pint if he gave the woman something. “Fella I spoke to this morning. I believed him at the time, but now I don't.”

“No?”

“No ... not now. Sometimes it's like that, you know, looking back over time, only a bit of time sometimes. You see that you've been fed a pork pie and this was a convincing pork pie as porkies go, but now I see it as just too pat.”

The landlady reached forward and took Sant's half-empty glass and replenished it and handed it back to him. “A crime, was it?” she said.

“A witness.” Sant took his glass of beer. “Thanks, that was good of you.”

“Just taking care of my regulars. Witness, you say?”

“At the time I thought so ... now I think a change of status from witness to suspect is probably appropriate.”

“Serious crime?”

“Double murder.”

“Serious enough.”

Sant drained his glass and walked home, aware that he was on duty at six a.m., which meant he had to be up at five. He didn't think he'd given the landlady anything that compromised his integrity or the investigation, but he'd given her enough to lubricate the machinery of his standing as a “regular” in the Queen's Head. It is, he thought, the way the ball bounces, the way the world goes round. He enjoyed the walk home, the rural night air, the scent of herbs and crops. In the sky he was able to pick out the Plough and Orion.

* * * *

“I just didn't believe him, sir.” Sant sat in front of Leif Vossion's desk. “I mean, the description of the man seen only twice about ten days ago, his ‘genteel shabby’ appearance, left-handed, local accent moderated by education ... for heaven's sake ... it just doesn't ring true. It's fiction.”

“Putting us off the scent, you think?”

“That's what my intuition tells me.”

“So, shall we go with your intuition?” Vossion looked keenly at Sant, with steely blue eyes.

“I think I'd like to.”

“First step?”

“Interview him, sir.”

“Do you think so?”

“I can't see another way forward.”

“Can't you? He handled the figurine yesterday, didn't he?”

“Yes!” Sant's eyes brightened. “Latents. Of course.”

“That's your first step. The murders are eighteen years old, so forensics won't give your request priority. Carmen Pharoah and Simon Markov have a city-centre stabbing which is still less than twenty-four-hours old, Ken Meninnot is up to his eyeballs in requests for forensic analysis, but if there's a result to be had, they'll get it for you.”

There was, in fact, a result to be had, though because of the backlog, it took Forensic Science Laboratory at Weatherby three weeks to process Sant's request. But he thought the wait well worth it. The fingerprints on the figurine, once his and Toucey's had been isolated, didn't belong to Julius Lashko. In fact, they belonged to a man called Shane Cody. When Sant entered Cody's name and numbers into the computer, he came up with gold dust. Cody had graduated from petty theft to the safer, less violent, but prosperous crime of receiving stolen goods. He was, in criminal speak, a “fence.”

“Well, well, well.” Sant peered at the information which had appeared on the monitor screen. The implication was that the entire contents of Lashko's Antiques, Micklegate, York, were “hot.” The fuller implication was that Cody may well have had a part in the double murder of the elderly Touceys eighteen years ago.

Vossion listened with interest to Sant's verbal report. “How do you want to handle it?”

“Bring him in for questioning. Itemise the contents of the shop, it's probably an Aladdin's cave of stolen goods.”

“Does he live over the shop?”

“No, sir. So closing the shop won't compromise his living quarters.”

“Convenient, eh?” Vossion smiled. He rarely smiled these days and Sant was pleased that he had been able to do so.

“I think that's what you do. Obtain warrants to search the shop and his house. You'll need help ... I wonder ... no ... first things first. Bring Cody in for questioning.... I'll find someone to go over the shop with a manifest of items taken from high-profile burglaries in the Vale of York for the last ... twenty years. Who knows what we'll find?”

* * * *

Cody looked worried. Sant pondered him and noted the worried look, the paling of the complexion, the furrowed brow, the nervous twitch. Sant took two audio cassettes, tore the cellophane from them, and slipped them into the recording machine and pressed the record button. The twin spools spun, the red light glowed.

“The date is the twenty-first of June, the time is ten-thirty a.m., the location is Friargate Police Station in the City of York. I am Detective Constable David Sant. I am now going to ask the other people present in the room to identify themselves.”

“PC Howie, Friargate Police Station.”

A pause.

“Will you please state your name for the purposes of the tape?” Sant spoke to Cody.

“Shane Cody.”

“Right, Mr. Cody. Is it true to say that you are also known as Julius Lashko?”

“It is.”

“And you are the proprietor of Lashko's Antiques, Micklegate, in the city of York?”

“I am.”

“And you have waived your right to have a solicitor present during this interview?”

“I have.”

“Thank you. Do you have any other aliases?”

“No.”

“How long have you been in the antiques business?”

“About twenty years.”

“Always at the same address?”

“Not always. I started with a stall in the market, then I had a shop on Nunnery Lane. I moved from there to Micklegate premises about five years ago.”

“All right. Now, Mr. Cody, you have a number of previous convictions, going back quite a few years, but latterly for receiving stolen goods.”

“Yes, but I'm going straight now.”

“Yes...” Sant echoed wryly. “Mr. Cody, the statuette, the figurine which we removed from your shop a few weeks ago, has been positively identified as having been stolen in a burglary which took place eighteen years ago during which an elderly householder and his lady wife were murdered.”

Cody gasped. “I didn't know that.”

Sant smiled inwardly. He knew then that the case was about to crack wide open. “It happens to be true. Two people who had given a lot to the city and the Vale of York, two professional people. The issue would be the same if it had been an elderly couple who'd been chronically unemployed all their days, but because it was a retired barrister and his wife who was a retired pathologist, well, it just seems worse somehow. It just does. The other thing is that because the piece of porcelain has been positively identified as having been stolen, we have obtained a warrant to search your business premises. This is being done at the moment. Our officers have with them a manifest of all unrecovered items taken from major burglaries in the area in the last twenty years.”

“I didn't know you could do that.”

“We can. And we are doing so. A warrant to search your house has also been obtained.”

“You can't do that! There's nothing there.”

“So there is something at the shop?”

A pause. The twin spools spun silently. The red light glowed.

“Look, Mr. Cody.” Sant leaned forwards. “Take my advice, will you, and I'm not just saying this because I want to wrap this up: If you're caught bang to rights, put your hand up to it, play with a straight bat. Don't try to wriggle off the hook in the face of overwhelming evidence as to your guilt. If you do that, you just dig yourself deeper and deeper into a hole. In this case, your best bet is to cooperate fully with the police enquiry.”

“That'll help me?”

“It will.”

“Okay. How about a coffee?”

Sipping coffee, Cody said, “Well, yes, I knew the piece of Dresden was bent, and a few other things that you'll find in the shop, particularly in the cellar, but you've got to believe me when I say I didn't know anybody had been topped during the burglary.... I also do want to go straight ... and have been doing so, in the main.”

“In the main.”

“Well, there's always one or two people who have something to hold over you and who want favours. You can make enough straight pennies without having to make bent ones as well. I suppose I'm finished now.”

“I think you are, Shane. So tell me what I want to hear.”

“I bought the piece of Dresden about fifteen years ago for about a tenth of its actual value, put it down in the cellar where all the bent stuff goes, with a little label on it with the date I acquired it. I have a fifteen-year rule, fifteen years after the purchase, if it's bent, it goes on sale. After that length of time, it might not be recognized during the few weeks, even days, that it's on display. I used to see bent stuff as long-term investments. That's how it's done, wait till you think it's safe and then trickle it back onto the market.”

“That right?”

“That's right. You'll find some stuff in my cellar from the big burglary last year.”

“The farmhouse?”

“Yes, the farmhouse. They cleaned it out.”

“I know.” Sant leaned back in his chair. This case was really cracking open.

“Sometimes you can't ever sell them. Too famous. Not openly, anyway. Can't put a stolen van Gogh in the shop window.”

“I've often wondered that, you know. What is the point of stealing a famous painting?”

“A lot of point, really. People think that famous works of art that are stolen are sold to private collectors who keep them for selfish reasons, but that isn't the case, because private collectors can't get rid of them so easily and private collectors like showing off their collections. No ... what happens is that they're sold and re-sold in the underworld, from generation to generation, and eventually the time distance from the theft and the distance of the descendants from the original owners is so great that ownership is difficult to challenge, and if the present ‘owner’ claims he found it, he can claim ‘Treasure Trove.’ It will be given to the nation, but he will receive its monetary value. Famous paintings stolen one hundred and fifty years ago will start to emerge in a hundred years’ time.”

“Well, you live and learn.” Sant drained his coffee and tossed the plastic mug into a waste bin. “So, tell me about the figurine. How, or from who, did you acquire it?”

Cody took a deep breath. “This will help me?”

“It won't harm you.”

“I'm forty-five, getting too old to do serious time.”

“Implicated in a double murder. That's very serious time.”

“I didn't know it was from that murder. I bought it four or five years after that murder.”

“So, spill the beans.”

“Hickman. He's the man you want.”

“Hickman?”

“Hickman. I see him around the city from time to time. He hasn't offered me anything for a while now.”

“First name?”

“Sid. Sidney Hickman.”

“Address?”

“I don't know—that's the gospel truth, but you can find it, he's got form for burglary. Don't know his numbers but he's in his forties. Tall, thin guy, neatly turned out. Drives a flash car, a yellow Mercedes.”

“I've seen him!”

“I'm certain you have, the original Flash Harry, always posing in his yellow Merc.”

“We'll pick him up quickly enough.” Sant was pleased with the progress that had been made. “He sold you the figurine?”

“He did. And a few other items you'll find in the cellar.”

“Right little treasure chest you've got, isn't it? And I dare say you'll be keen to tell me about all the other felons you've been receiving from.”

“Yes ... yes ... at my age I can't go to prison.”

“Oh, but you can, though the likelihood of doing so diminishes in direct proportion to the level of cooperation we receive from you. In fact, it isn't impossible for the Crown Prosecution Service to grant immunity from prosecution depending on what hard and verifiable information you have to offer, and what evidence you are prepared to give in court. But that is another matter, for another day. Right now, all I'm interested in is Sid, Flash Harry, Hickman. That burglary was a mob-handed affair, at least four guys.”

“Only he can tell you what happened. I only took the bent stuff off him, and only after he'd been sitting on it for years, so I wouldn't connect it with that burglary.”

* * * *

Sidney “Sid” Hickman was indeed well known to the police. He was arrested at his prestigious house on the Shipton Road, on the very outskirts of the city of York, and conveyed to Friargate Police Station.

For the second time that day, Sant tore cellophane from new audio cassettes and placed them in the recording machine and pressed the Record button. The twin tapes spun slowly, the red light glowed. After stating the date, time, and location, and after identifying himself, Sant said, “I am going to ask the others in the room to identify themselves.”

“PC Daltry, Friargate.”

“Sidney Hickman.” Said in a surly manner.

“Mr. Hickman, you have been arrested and cautioned in connection with the double murder and aggravated burglary in the Toucey household, eighteen years ago. Mr. Shane Cody has given a statement to the effect that you offered him a porcelain figurine and other items stolen during the burglary. The figurine has been positively identified as stolen from the Toucey household.”

“Him and his big mouth.”

“So you concede you perpetrated the crime?” Sant tried to hide his surprise.

Hickman shrugged.

“Please answer for the benefit of the tape.”

“Aye ... yes, yes, yes, yes. Is that all right? ... a thousand times yes, for the benefit of the tape.”

“That'll do,” Sant said. “That'll do nicely.”

“Tell you the truth, I'm quite relieved. I've done the crime, but I don't do violence. It just isn't on my agenda.”

“So what happened at the house that night?”

“We thought they were out, so when we rang the bell just to be on the safe side, and the old guy answered, Billy Lear smashed him one helluva punch and he hit his head going down.... The old lady, she came into the hallway and cried out, then stumbled into a side room clutching her chest, sort of folding up as she went down. Then we emptied the house.”

“With two people lying dead or dying?”

“We were young then. It didn't seem to bother us. Death only happened to other people.”

“Now?”

“Now it haunts me. Now I've reached the age where I know death will happen to me ... now that night haunts me. Even criminals can feel bad. I didn't know there was going to be violence that night.”

“Carried on with the burglary though, didn't you? Didn't flee the scene as soon as Billy Lear punched the old boy, did you? Makes you just as guilty as if you had felled the old gentleman yourself.”

“That'll be something to talk over with my lawyer.”

“I told Cody that a full and frank confession will help him. It'll help you too.”

Hickman nodded. “There was me, Billy Lear, Tom Ingrow, and Charlie Pitt. We were young bulls, especially Billy Lear and Charlie Pitt. Me and Tom, we never did violence.”

“Where will we find them?”

“Billy's got form, you'll pick him up easily enough if he isn't inside at the moment, he never did stop duckin’ and divin'. Tom Ingrow and Charlie Pitt have gone straight, both married with families, never got caught, so didn't get any form. Calmed down and went to university. Tom's an accountant now and Charlie's a schoolteacher. I can tell you where they live.”

Sant groaned. Arresting a professional man of standing in the community at seven a.m. for a crime committed a long, long time ago was never easy. Sometimes he envied the Americans their Statute of Limitations, even though he knew it didn't apply to the crime of murder. But it was not unknown in the United Kingdom, nor in Sant's relatively brief experience as a police officer, that an act committed in a person's twenties was not traced to him, with life-ruining consequences, until he was in his middle years of life. The long shadow of the past, as it is known.

* * * *

Simon Toucey, who a few weeks earlier, whilst walking in Micklegate one Sunday morning, had spied a piece of dun-coloured porcelain in an antiques shop window, stood and climbed into his black gown, and then, with a practiced flourish, placed the wig upon his head. Later, in a hushed room, he turned to a thin-faced youth and said, “You have, in my opinion, quite properly been found guilty of the crimes for which you have been charged. You have ruined the lives of your victims and I have been observing you throughout this trial and you have not shown the slightest trace of guilt or remorse for your actions. I sentence you to life imprisonment.”

Copyright © 2012 Peter Turnbull

[Back to Table of Contents]

Fiction: GUNPOWDER ALLEY
by Bill Pronzini

MWA Grand Master Bill Pronzini is best known for his contemporary “Nameless Detective” novels, but he's just as comfortable with historical settings, as is evident in the Carpenter and Quincannon series. In 2013, Forge will publish The Bughouse Affair, a novel featuring the 1890s detectives written in collaboration with Marcia Muller; although Bill Pronzini created the characters, this may be the last story to bear his byline alone. Don't miss his new Nameless novel, Hellbox.

From where he sat propped behind a copy of the San Francisco Argonaut, Quincannon had an unobstructed view of both the entrance to the Hotel Grant's bar parlor and the booth in which his client, Titus Willard, waited nervously. The Seth Thomas clock above the backbar gave the time as one minute past nine, which made the man Willard was waiting for late for their appointment. This was no surprise to Quincannon. Blackmailers seldom missed an opportunity to heap additional pressure on their victims.

Willard fidgeted, looked at the clock for perhaps the twentieth time, and once more pooched out his cheeks—an habitual trick that, combined with his puffy muttonchop whiskers, gave him the look of a large rodent. As per arrangement, he managed to ignore the table where Quincannon sat with his newspaper. The satchel containing the $5,000 cash payoff was on the seat next to him, one corner of it just visible to Quincannon's sharp eye.

The Argonaut, like all of the city's papers these days, was full of news of the imminent war with Spain. The Atlantic fleet had been dispatched to Cuban waters, Admiral Dewey's Asiatic Squadron was on its way to the Philippines, and President McKinley had issued a call for volunteer soldiers to join Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders. Quincannon, who disdained war as much as he disdained felons of every stripe, paid the inflammatory yellow journalism no mind while pretending to be engrossed in it, and wondered again what his client had done to warrant blackmail demands that now amounted to $10,000.

He had asked Willard, of course, but the banker had refused to divulge the information. Given the fact that the man was in his mid fifties, with a prim socialite wife and a grown daughter, and the guilty flush that had stained his features when the question was put to him, his transgressions likely involved one or more young and none-too-respectable members of the opposite sex. In any case, Willard had shown poor judgment in paying the first $5,000 demand, and good judgment in hiring Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, to put an end to the bloodletting after the second demand was made. The man may have been worried, frightened, and guilt-ridden, but he was only half a fool. Pay twice, and he knew he'd be paying for the rest of his life.

Quincannon took a sip of clam juice, his favorite tipple now that he was a confirmed teetotaler, and turned a page of the Argonaut. Willard glanced again at the clock, which now read ten past nine, then drained what was left of a double whiskey. And that was when the blackmailer—if it was the blackmailer and not a hireling—finally appeared.

The fellow's entrance into the bar parlor was slow and cautious. This was one thing that alerted Quincannon. The other was the way he was dressed. Threadbare overcoat, slouch hat drawn low on his forehead, wool muffler wound up high inside the coat collar so that it concealed the lower part of his face. This attire might have been somewhat conspicuous at another time of year, but on this damp, chilly November night, he drew only a few casual glances from the patrons, none of which lingered.

He paused just inside the doorway to peer around before his gaze locked in on his prey. Out of the corner of one eye Quincannon watched him approach the booth. What little of the man's face was visible corroborated Willard's description of him from their first meeting: middle-aged, with a hooked nose and sallow complexion, and average to small in size, though it was difficult to tell for certain because of the coat's bulk. Not such-a-much at all.

Titus Willard stiffened when the fellow slipped into the booth opposite. There was a low-voiced exchange of words, after which the banker passed the satchel under the table. The hook-nosed gent opened it just long enough to see that it contained stacks of greenbacks, closed it again, then produced a manila envelope from inside his coat and slid it across the table. Willard opened the envelope and furtively examined the papers it contained—letters of a highly personal nature, judging from the banker's expression. They would not be the sum total of the blackmail evidence, however. Finding the rest was one part of Quincannon's job, the others being to identify and then yaffle the responsible party or parties.

While the two men were making their exchange, Quincannon casually folded the newspaper and laid it on the table, gathered up his umbrella and derby hat, and strolled out into the hotel lobby. He took a position just inside the corridor that led to the elevators, where he had an oblique view of the bar entrance. His quarry would have to come out that way because there was no other exit from the bar parlor.

The wait this time was less than two minutes. When Hook-nose appeared, he went straight to the swing door that led out to New Montgomery Street. Quincannon followed twenty paces behind. A drizzle of rain had begun and the salt-tinged bay wind had the sting of a whip. It being a poor night for travel by shanks’ mare, Quincannon expected his man to take one of the hansom cabs at the stand in front of the Palace Hotel opposite. But this didn't happen. With the satchel clutched inside his overcoat, the fellow angled across Montgomery and turned the far corner into Jessie Street.

Quincannon reached the corner a few seconds later. He paused to peer around it before unfurling his umbrella and turning into Jessie himself, to make sure he wasn't observed. Hook-nose apparently had no fear of pursuit; he was hurrying ahead through the misty rain without a backward glance.

Jessie was a dark, narrow thoroughfare, and something of an anomaly as the new century approached—a mostly residential street that ran for several blocks through the heart of the business district, midway between Market and Mission. Small, old houses and an occasional small business establishment flanked it, fronted by tiny yards and backed by barns and sheds. The electric light glow from Third Street and the now-steady drizzle made it a chasm of shadows. The darkness and the thrumming wind allowed Quincannon to quicken his pace without fear of being seen or heard.

After two blocks, his quarry made another turning, this time into a cobblestone cul-de-sac called Gunpowder Alley. The name, or so Quincannon had once been told, derived from the fact that Copperhead sympathizers had stored a large quantity of explosives in one of the houses there during the War Between the States. Gunpowder Alley was even darker than Jessie Street, the frame buildings strung along its short length shabby presences in the wet gloom. The only illumination was strips and daubs of light that leaked palely around a few drawn window curtains.

Not far from the corner, Hook-nose crossed the alley to a squat, dark structure that huddled between the back end of a saloon fronting on Jessie Street and a private residence. The squat building appeared to be a store of some sort, its plate-glass window marked with lettering that couldn't be read at a distance. The man used a key to unlock a door next to the window and disappeared inside.

As Quincannon cut across the alley, lamplight bloomed in pale fragments around the edges of a curtain that covered the store window. He ambled past, pausing in front of the glass to read the lettering: cigars, pipe tobacco, sundries. r. sonderberg, prop. The curtain was made of heavy muslin; all he could see through the center folds was a slice of narrow counter. He put his ear to the cold glass. The faint whistling voice of the wind, muted here, was the only sound to be heard.

He moved on. A narrow, ink-black passage separated R. Sonderberg's cigar store from the house on the far side—a low, two-storied structure with a gabled roof and ancient shingles curled by the weather. The parlor window on the lower floor was an uncurtained and palely lamplit rectangle; he could just make out the shape of a white-haired, shawl-draped woman in a high-backed rocking chair, either asleep or keeping a lonely watch on the street. Crowding close along the rear of store and house, paralleling Gunpowder Alley from the Jessie Street corner to its end, was the long back wall of a warehouse, its dark windows steel-shuttered. There was nothing else to see. And nothing to hear except the wind, muted here in the narrow lane.

A short distance beyond the house Quincannon paused to close his umbrella, the drizzle having temporarily ceased. He shook water from the fabric, then turned back the way he'd come. The woman in the rocking chair hadn't moved—asleep, he decided. Lamp glow now outlined a window in the squat building that faced into the side passage; the front part of the shop was once again dark. R. Sonderberg, if that was who the hook-nosed gent was, had evidently entered a room or rooms at the rear—living quarters, like as not.

Quincannon stopped again to listen, and again heard only silence from within. He sidestepped to the door and tried the latch. Bolted. His intention then was to enter the side passage, to determine if access could be gained at the rear. What stopped him was the fact that he was no longer the only pedestrian abroad in Gunpowder Alley.

Heavy footsteps echoed hollowly from the direction of Jessie Street. Even as dark and wet as it was, he recognized almost immediately the brass-buttoned coat, helmet, and hand-held dark lantern of a police patrolman. Hell and damn! Of all times for a blasted bluecoat to happen along on his rounds.

Little annoyed Quincannon more than having to abort an investigation in mid-skulk, but he had no other choice. He turned from the door and moved at an even pace toward the approaching policeman. They met just beyond the joining of the saloon's back wall and the cigar store's far side wall.

Unlike many of his brethren, the bluecoat, an Irishman in his middle years, was a gregarious sort. He stopped, forcing Quincannon to do likewise, and briefly opened the lantern's shutter so that the beam flicked over his face before saying in a conversational tones, “Evening, sir. Nasty weather, eh?”

“Worse coming, I expect.”

“Aye. Heavy rain before morning. Like as not I'll be getting a thorough soaking before my patrol ends.”

Quincannon itched to touch his hat and move on. But the bluecoat wasn't done with him yet. “Don't believe I've seen you before, sir. Live in Gunpowder Alley, do you?”

“No. Visiting.”

“Which resident, if you don't mind my asking?”

“R. Sonderberg, at the cigar store.”

“Ah. I've seen the lad a time or two, but we've yet to meet. I've only been on this beat two weeks now, y'see. Maguire's my name, at your service.”

Before Quincannon could frame a lie that would extricate him from Officer Maguire's company, there came in rapid succession a brace of muffled reports. As quiet as the night was, there was no mistaking the fact that they were pistol shots and that the weapon had been fired inside the squat building.

Quincannon's reflexes were superior to the patrolman's; he was already on the run by the time the bluecoat reacted. Behind him Maguire shouted something, but he paid no heed. Another sound, a loudish thump, reached his ears as he charged past the shop's entrance, dropping his umbrella so he could grasp the Navy Colt in his coat pocket. Seconds later, he veered into the side passage. The narrow confines appeared deserted and there were no sounds of movement at its far end. He skidded to a halt in front of the lighted window.

Vertical bars set close together prevented both access and egress. The glass inside was dirty and rain-spotted, but he could make out the figure of a man sprawled supine on the floor of a cluttered room. There was no sign of anyone else.

The spaces between the bars were just wide enough to reach a hand through; he did that, pushing fingers against the pane. It didn't yield to the pressure.

Officer Maguire pounded up beside him, the beam from his lantern cutting jigsaw pieces out of the darkness. The bobbing light illuminated enough of the passage ahead so that Quincannon could see to where it ended at the warehouse wall. He hurried back there while Maguire had his look through the window.

Another short walkway, shrouded in gloom, stretched at right angles to the side passage like the cross bar of the letter T. Quincannon thumbed a lucifer alight as he stepped around behind the cigar store, shielding it with his hand. That section was likewise empty except for a pair of refuse bins. There was no exit in that direction; the walkway ended in a board fence that joined shop and warehouse walls, built so high that only a monkey could have climbed it. The match's flicker showed him the outlines of a rear door to R. Sonderberg's quarters. He tried the latch, but the heavy door was secure in its frame.

Maguire appeared, his lantern creating more dancing patterns of light and shadow. “See anyone back here?” he demanded.

“No one.”

“Would that rear door be open?”

“No. Bolted on the inside.”

The bluecoat grunted and pushed past him to try the latch himself. While he was doing that, Quincannon struck another match in order to examine the other half of the walkway. It served the adjacent house, ending in a similarly high and unscalable board fence. The house's rear door, he soon determined, was also bolted within.

The lantern beam again picked him out. “Come away from there, laddie. Out front with me, step lively now.”

Quincannon complied. As they hurried along the passage, Maguire said, “Is it your friend Sonderberg lying shot in there?”

No friend of mine or society's, Quincannon thought. But he said only, “I couldn't be sure.”

“Didn't seem to be anybody else in the room.”

“No.”

“Well, we'll soon find out.”

When they emerged from the passage, Quincannon saw that the elderly woman had left her rocking chair and was now standing stooped at the edge of her front window, peering out. One other individual had so far been alerted; a man wearing a light overcoat and high hat and carrying a walking stick had appeared from somewhere and stood staring nearby. Quincannon knew from rueful experience that a full gaggle of onlookers would soon follow.

No one had exited the cigar store through the Gunpowder Alley entrance; the door was still locked from within. Maguire grunted again. “We'll be having to break it down,” he said. “Sonderberg, or whoever ‘tis, may still be alive.”

It took the combined weight of both of them to force the door, the bolt finally splintering free with an echoing crack. Once they were inside, Maguire flashed his lantern's beam over displays of cigars and pipe tobacco, partly filled shelves of cheap sundries, then aimed it down behind the low service counter. The shop was cramped and free of hiding places—and completely empty.

The closed door to the rear quarters stood behind a pair of dusty drapes. “By the Saints!” Maguire exclaimed when he caught hold of the latch. “This one's bolted too.”

It proved no more difficult to break open than the outer door had. The furnished room beyond covered the entire rear two-thirds of the building. The man sprawled on the floor was middle-aged, medium sized, and hook-nosed—Quincannon's quarry, right enough, though he no longer wore the overcoat, muffler, and slouch hat that had partially disguised him in the Hotel Grant. Blood from a pair of wounds spotted the front of his linsey-woolsey shirt; his open eyes glistened in the light from a table lamp.

Maguire went to one knee beside him, felt for a pulse. “Dead,” he said unnecessarily.

Quincannon's attention was now on the otherwise empty room. It contained a handful of secondhand furniture, a blanket-covered cot, a potbellied stove that radiated heat, and a table topped with a bottle of whiskey and two empty glasses. The whole was none too tidy and none too clean.

Another pair of curtains partially covered an alcove in the wall opposite the window. Quincannon satisfied himself that the alcove contained nothing more than an icebox and larder cabinet. The only item of furniture large enough to conceal a person was a rickety wardrobe, but all he found when he opened it were a few articles of inexpensive clothing.

Maguire was on his feet again. He said, “I wonder what made him do it.”

“Do what?”

“Shoot himself, of course. Suicide's a cardinal sin.”

“Is that what you think happened, Officer?”

“Aye, and what else could it be, with all the doors and windows locked and no one else on the premises?”

Suicide? Faugh! Murder was what else it could be, and murder was what it was, despite the circumstances. Three things told Quincannon this beyond any doubt. Sonderberg had been shot twice in the chest, a location handgun suicides seldom chose because it necessitated holding the weapon at an awkward angle, and one of the wounds was high on the left side in a non-lethal spot. The pistol that had fired the two rounds lay some distance away from the dead man, too far for it to have been dropped if he had fired the fatal shot. And the most damning evidence: The satchel containing the $5,000 blackmail payoff was nowhere to be seen here or in the front part of the shop.

But Quincannon shrugged and said nothing. Let the bluecoat believe what he liked. The dispatching of R. Sonderberg was part and parcel to the blackmail game, and that made it John Quincannon's meat.

“I'll be needing to report in to headquarters,” Maguire said. “The nearest callbox is on Jessie two blocks distant. You'll stay here, will you, and keep out any curious citizens until I return, Mr.—?”

“Quinn. That I will, Officer.”

“Quinn, is it? You'll be Irish yourself, then?”

“Scotch Irish,” Quincannon said.

Maguire hurried out. As soon as he was alone, Quincannon commenced a search of the premises. The dead man's coat and trouser pockets yielded nothing of value or interest other than an expired insurance card that confirmed his identity as Raymond Sonderberg. The pistol that had done for him was a small-caliber Colt, its chambers fully loaded except for the two fired rounds; it bore no identifying marks of any kind. The $5,000 was not in the room, nor was whatever blackmail evidence had been withheld from Titus Willard tonight.

The bolt on the rear door was tightly drawn, the door itself sturdy in its frame; and for good measure a wooden bar set into brackets spanned its width. Sonderberg had been nothing if not security conscious, for all the good it had done him. The single window was hinged upward, the swivel latch at the bottom of the sash loosely in place around its stud fastener. Quincannon flipped the hook aside and raised the glass to peer again at the vertical bars. They were set tightly top and bottom; he couldn't budge any of them. And as close together as they were, there was no way in which anything as bulky as the satchel could have passed between them.

Sonderberg had brought the satchel inside with him, there could be no mistaking that. Whoever had shot him had made off with it; that, too, was plain enough. But how the devil could the assassin have committed his crime and then escaped from not one but two sealed rooms in the clutch of seconds that had passed between the firing of the fatal shots and Quincannon's entry into the side passage?

The night's stillness was broken now by the sound of voices out front, but as yet none of the bystanders had attempted to come inside. Muttering to himself, Quincannon lowered the window and made his way out through the cigar store to stand in the broken doorway.

The parlor of the house next-door, he noted, was now dark and the white-haired occupant had come out to stand, shawl-draped and leaning on a cane, on the small front porch. The others gathered in Gunpowder Alley numbered less than a dozen, drawn from nearby houses and the Jessie Street watering hole, among them the man in the cape and high hat, who now assailed him with questions. Quincannon provided only enough information, repeating Maguire's false theory of suicide, to dampen the bystanders’ enthusiasm; shootings were common in the city and there was not enough spice in a self-dispatching to hold the jaded citizens’ interest. He then sought information of his own, but none of the crowd owned up to seeing Sonderberg or anyone else enter the cigar store after its six o'clock closing.

Some of the men were already moving away to homes and saloon when Maguire returned. The bluecoat dispersed the rest. The elderly woman still stood on the porch; it was not until the alley was mostly deserted again that she doddered back inside the darkened house.

Quincannon asked Maguire if he knew the woman's name and whether or not she lived alone. “I couldn't tell you, lad,” the patrolman said. “I've not seen her before—the house has always been dark when I've come by.”

The morgue wagon and a trio of other bluecoats arrived shortly. None of them was interested in Quincannon. Neither was Maguire any longer. San Francisco's finest, a misnomer if ever there was one, found suicides and those peripherally involved to be worthy of little time or attention. While the minions of the law were inside with the remains of Raymond Sonderberg, he remembered his dropped umbrella and mounted a brief search, but it was nowhere to be found. One of the onlookers must have made off with it. Faugh! Thieves everywhere in this infernal city!

He crossed to the adjacent house. The parlor window was curtained now, no light showing around its edges. The bell pull beside the door no longer worked; he rapped on the panel instead. There was no immediate response. Mayhap the white-haired woman wanted no truck with visitors after the night's excitement, or had already retired—

Neither. Old boards creaked and a thin, quavery voice asked, “Yes? Who's there?”

“Police officer,” Quincannon lied glibly. “A few questions if I may. I won't keep you long.”

There was a longish pause, followed by the click of a bolt being thrown; the door squeaked open partway and the old woman appeared. Stooped, still bundled in a shawl over a black dress, she carried her cane in one hand and a lighted candle in the other. A cold draught set the candle flame to flickering in its ceramic holder, so that it cast patterns of light and shadow over her heavily seamed face as she peered out and up at him.

“I know you,” she said. “You were here before all the commotion next-door.”

“You spied me through your parlor window, eh? I thought as much, Mrs.—?”

“Carver. Letitia Carver. Yes, I often sit looking out in the evenings. A person my age has little else to occupy her attention.”

“Did you see anyone enter or leave the cigar store at any time tonight?”

“No, no one. What happened to Mr. Sonderberg?”

“Shot dead in his quarters.”

“Oh!”

“Possibly by his own hand, more likely by an intruder. You heard the shots, did you?”

“Yes. I thought that's what they were, but I wasn't sure.”

“You live here alone, Mrs. Carver?”

“Since my husband passed on, bless his soul.”

“And you've had no visitors tonight?”

She sighed wistfully. “Few come to visit me anymore.”

“Did you hear anyone moving about in the side or rear passages, before or after the pistol shots?”

“Only you and the other policeman.” She sighed again, sadly this time. “Such a tragedy. Poor Mr. Sonderberg.”

Poor Mr. Sonderberg, my hat, Quincannon thought. Poor Titus Willard, who was now bereft of $10,000. And poor Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, who were out a substantial fee if the mystery of Sonderberg's death remained unsolved.

The woman said in her quavery voice, “Is there anything more, young man? It's quite chilly standing here.”

“Nothing more.”

She retreated inside and he returned to the boardwalk. R. Sonderberg's body was in the process of being loaded into the morgue wagon. None of the policemen even glanced in Quincannon's direction as he crossed the alley and made his way to Jessie Street, his thoughts as dark and gloomy as the night around him.

* * * *

Sabina was already at her desk when he walked into the Market Street offices of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, the next morning. She was a handsome woman, his partner and unrequited love—the possessor of a fine figure, eyes the color of the sea at dusk, and sleek black hair layered high on her head and fastened with a jeweled comb. Today she wore one of the leg-of-mutton blouses which he usually found enticing, but his mood was such that he took only peripheral notice of her. His night had been a mostly sleepless one in which he'd wrestled unsuccessfully with the problem of how R. Sonderberg had been murdered and by whom. His lack of success was all the more frustrating because he prided himself on having an uncanny knack for unraveling even the knottiest of seemingly impossible problems.

Sabina said, as he shed his umbrella and rain-spotted overcoat, “Titus Willard telephoned a few minutes ago. He was upset that you failed to contact him last night.”

“Bah.”

“Well, he asked that you get in touch with him as soon as you arrived.”

“I'll see him later this morning. He won't be pleased to hear the news I have for him at any time.”

“You weren't able to identify the blackmailer, then?”

“On the contrary. The blackmailer's name is, or was, Raymond Sonderberg, the proprietor of a cigar store in Gunpowder Alley. He was murdered in his locked quarters before I could confront him and recover the blackmail evidence and payoff money.”

“Murdered? So that's why you're in such a foul humor this morning.”

“What makes you think my humor is foul?”

“The scowl you're wearing, for one thing. You look like a pirate on his way to the gibbet.”

“Bah,” Quincannon said again.

“Exactly what happened last night, John?”

He sat at his desk and provided her with a detailed summary. They often shared information on difficult cases in order to obtain a fresh perspective. Sabina's years as a Pink Rose, one of the select handful of women operatives hired by the Pinkerton Agency, plus the four years of their partnership, had honed her skills to a fine edge. He would never have admitted it to her or anyone else, but she was often his equal at the more challenging aspects of the sleuthing game.

“A puzzling series of events, to be sure,” Sabina said when he finished his account. “But perhaps not as mysterious as they might seem.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know from experience, John, that such mysteries generally have a relatively simple explanation.”

He admitted the truth of this. “But I'm hanged if I can see it in this case.”

“Well, the first question that occurs to me, was the crime planned or committed on the spur of the moment?”

“If it was planned, it was done in order to silence Sonderberg and make off with the five thousand dollars.”

“By an accomplice in the blackmail scheme.”

“So it would seem. The accomplice must have been waiting for him in his quarters. The stove there was glowing hot and there was not enough time for Sonderberg to have stoked the fire to high heat, even if he'd built it up before he left for the Hotel Grant.”

“Then why all the mystification?” Sabina asked. “Why not simply shoot Sonderberg and slip away into the night with the loot?”

“To make murder appear to be suicide.”

“That could have been accomplished without resorting to such elaborate flummery. Locked rooms and mysterious disappearances smack of deliberate subterfuge.”

“Aye, so they do. But to what purpose?”

“The obvious answer is to fool someone in close proximity at the time.”

“Who? Not me, surely. No one could have known ahead of time that I would follow Sonderberg from the hotel to Gunpowder Alley.”

“The bluecoat, Maguire, then,” Sabina said. “From your description of him, he's the sort who makes his rounds on a by-the-clock schedule. Still, it seems rather an intricate game just to confuse a simple patrolman.”

“If the whole was planned ahead of time, and not a result of circumstance.”

“In either case, there has to be a plausible explanation. Are you certain there was no possible means of escape from Sonderberg's building following the shooting?”

“Front and rear entrances bolted from the inside, the door to his living quarters likewise bolted, the only window both barred and locked. Yes, I'm certain of that much.”

“Doesn't it follow, then, that if escape was impossible, the murderer was never inside the building?”

“It would,” Quincannon said, “except for three facts that indicate otherwise. The missing satchel and greenbacks; the presence of the whiskey bottle and two glasses on the table; the pistol that dispatched Sonderberg lying at a distance from the body. There can be no doubt that both killer and victim were together inside that sealed room.”

“The thump you heard just after the shots were fired. Can you find any significance in that?”

“None so far. It might have been a foot striking a wall—that sort of sound.”

“But loud enough to carry out to Gunpowder Alley. Did you also hear running steps?”

“No. No other sounds at all.” Quincannon stood and began to restlessly pace the office. “The murderer's vanishing act is just as befuddling. Even if he managed to extricate himself from the building, how the devil was he able to disappear so quickly? Not even a cat could have climbed those fences enclosing the rear walkway. Nor the warehouse wall, not that such a scramble would have done him any good with all its windows steel-shuttered.”

“Which leaves only one possible escape route.”

“The rear door to Letitia Carver's house, yes. But it was bolted when I tried it and she claims not to have had any visitors.”

“She could have been lying.”

Quincannon conceded that she could have been.

“I don't suppose there's any chance that she herself could be the culprit?”

“She's eighty if she's a day,” he said. “Besides, I saw her sitting in her parlor window not two minutes before the shots were fired.”

“Lying to protect the guilty party, possibly. Perhaps a relative. In which case the murderer was hiding in the house while you spoke to her.”

“A galling possibility, if true.” Quincannon paused, glowering, to run fingers through his thick beard. “The crone seemed innocent enough, yet now that I consider it, there was something ... odd about her.”

“Furtive, you mean?”

“No. Her actions, her words ... I can't quite put my finger on it.”

“Why don't you have another talk with her, John?”

“That,” Quincannon said, “is what I intend to do straightaway.”

* * * *

Gunpowder Alley was no more appealing by daylight than it had been under the cloak of darkness. Heavy rain during the early morning hours had slackened into another dreary drizzle, and the buildings encompassing the alley's short length all had a huddled appearance, bleak and sodden under the wet gray sky.

The cul-de-sac was deserted when Quincannon, dry beneath a newly purchased umbrella, turned into it from Jessie Street. Boards had been nailed across the front entrance to the cigar store and a police seal applied to forestall potential looters. At the house next-door, tattered curtains still covered the parlor window.

He stood looking at the window for a few seconds, his mind jostled by memory fragments—words spoken to him by Maguire, others by Letitia Carver. Quickly, then, he climbed to the porch and rapped on the front door. Neither that series of knocks, nor two more, brought a response.

His resolve, sharpened now, prodded him to action. In his pocket he carried a set of lock picks which he'd purchased from an ex-housebreaker living in Warsaw, Illinois, who manufactured burglar tools, advertised them as novelties in the Police Gazette, and sold them for ten dollars the set. He set to work with these on the flimsy door lock and within seconds had the bolt snicked free.

In the foyer inside, he paused to listen. No sounds reached his ears save for the random creaks of old, wet timbers. He called loudly, “Hello! Anyone here?” Faint echoes of his voice were all the answer he received.

He moved through an archway into the parlor. The room was cold, decidedly musty; no fire had burned in the grate in a long while, certainly not as recently as last night. The furniture was sparse and had the worn look of discards. One arm of the rocking chair set near the curtained window was broken, bent outward at an angle. The lamp on the rickety table next to it was as cold as the air.

Glowering fiercely now, Quincannon set off on a rapid search of the premises upstairs and down. There were scattered pieces of furniture in two other rooms, including a sagging iron bedstead sans mattress in what might have been the master bedroom; the remaining rooms were empty. A closet in the foyer contained a single item that brought forth a blistering, triple-jointed oath.

He left the house, grumbling and growling, and stepped into the side passage for another examination of the barred window to Sonderberg's quarters. Then he moved on to the cross passage at the rear, where a quick study confirmed his judgments of the night before: There was no possible exit at either end, both fences too tall and slippery to be scaled.

Out front again, he embarked on a rapid canvass of the immediate neighborhood. He spoke to two residents of Gunpowder Alley and the bartender at the saloon on the Jessie Street corner, corroborating one fact he already knew and learning another that surprised him not at all.

The first: The house next to the cigar store had been empty for four months, a possibility he should have suspected much sooner from the pair of conflicting statements he'd finally recalled: Maguire's that in the two weeks he'd patrolled Gunpowder Alley the parlor window had always been dark, the woman calling herself Letitia Carver's that she often sat there at night looking out.

And the second fact: Raymond Sonderberg, a man who kept mostly to himself and eked out a meager living selling cigars and sundries, was known to frequent variety houses and melodeons such as the Bella Union on Portsmouth Square.

The mystery surrounding Sonderberg's death was no longer a mystery. And should not have been one as long as it had; Quincannon felt like a damned rattlepate for allowing himself to be duped and fuddled by what was, as Sabina had suggested, a crime with an essentially simple explanation. For he knew now how and why Sonderberg had been murdered in his locked quarters. And was tolerably sure of who had done the deed—the only person, given the circumstances, it could possibly be.

* * * *

Titus Willard was alone in his private office at the Montgomery Street branch of Woolworth National Bank when Quincannon arrived there shortly before noon. And none too pleased to have been kept waiting for word as long as he had.

“Why didn't you contact me last night, as we agreed?” he demanded. “Don't tell me you weren't able to follow and identify the blackmailer?”

“One of the blackmailers, yes, the man you paid. Raymond Sonderberg, proprietor of a cigar store in Gunpowder Alley.”

“One of the blackmailers? I don't understand.”

“His accomplice shot him dead in his quarters and made off with the satchel before I could intervene.”

Willard blinked his surprise and consternation. “But who...?”

“I'll have the answer to that question, Mr. Willard, after you've answered a few of mine. Why were you being blackmailed?”

“...I told you before, I'd rather not say.”

“You'll tell me if you want the safe return of your money and the remaining blackmail evidence.”

The banker assumed his habitual pooched rodent look.

“A woman, wasn't it?” Quincannon prompted. “An illicit affair?”

“You're, ah, a man of the world, surely you understand that when one reaches my age—”

“I have no interest in reasons or rationalizations, only in the facts of the matter. The woman's name, to begin with.”

Willard hemmed and hawed and pooched some more before he finally answered in a scratchy voice, “Pauline Dupree.”

“And her profession?”

“Profession? I don't see—Oh, very well. She is a stage performer and actress. Yes, and a very good one, I might add.”

“I thought as much. Where does she perform?”

“At the Gaiety Theater. But she aspires to be a serious actress one day, perhaps on the New York stage.”

“Does she, now.”

“I, ah, happened to be at the theater one evening two months ago and we chanced to meet—”

Quincannon waved that away. No one “happened to be” at the Gaiety

Theater, which was something of a bawdy melodeon on the fringe of the Barbary Coast. The sort of place that catered to middle-aged men with a taste for the exotic, specializing as it did in prurient skits and raucous musical numbers featuring scantily clad young women.

He asked, “You confided in her when you received the first blackmail demand?”

“Of course,” Willard said. “She had a right to know....”

“Why did she have a right to know?”

“It's ... letters I wrote to her that are being held against me.”

Highly indiscreet letters, no doubt. “And how did the blackmailer get possession of them?”

“They were stolen from her rooms last week, along with a small amount of jewelry. This man Sonderberg ... a common sneak thief who saw an opportunity for richer gains.”

Stolen? Sonderberg a common sneak thief? What a credulous gent his client was! “Was it Miss Dupree's suggestion that you pay the initial five thousand dollars?”

“Yes, and I agreed. It seemed the most reasonable course of action at the time.”

“But when the second demand arrived two days ago, you didn't tell her you'd decided to hire a detective until after you came to me.”

“That's so, yes. Engaging you was a spur-of-the-moment decision—”

“And when you did tell her, you also explained that I'd be present at the second payoff and that I intended to follow and confront the blackmailer afterward?”

“Why shouldn't I have confided in her? She—” Willard broke off, frowning, then once again performed his rodent imitation. “See here, Quincannon. You're not suggesting that Miss Dupree had anything to do with the extortion scheme?”

It was not yet time to answer that question. “I deal in facts, as I told you, not suggestions,” Quincannon hedged. “Where are you keeping her?”

“Her rooms are on Stockton Street,” the banker said stiffly.

“Is she likely to be there or at the Gaiety at this hour?”

“I don't know. One or the other, I suppose.”

“Come along, then, Mr. Willard,” Quincannon said, “and we'll pay a call on the lady. I expect we'll both find it a stimulating rendezvous.”

* * * *

They found Pauline Dupree at the gaudily painted Gaiety Theater, primping in her backstage dressing room. She was more or less what Quincannon had expected—young and rather buxomly attractive, with dark-gold tresses and bold, smoke-hued eyes wise beyond her years. Her high color paled a bit when she saw Quincannon, but she recovered quickly.

“And who is this gentleman, Titus?” she asked Willard.

“John Quincannon, the detective I told you about.” The smile the banker bestowed on her was fatuous as well as apologetic. “I'm sorry to trouble you, my dear, but he insisted on seeing you.”

“Did he? And for what reason?”

“He wouldn't say, precisely. But he seems to have a notion that you are somehow involved in the blackmail scheme.”

There was no need to hold back any longer. Quincannon said, “Not involved in it, the originator of it.”

Pauline Dupree's only reaction was a raised eyebrow and a little moue of dismay. A talented actress, to be sure. But then, he'd already had ample evidence of her skills last night.

“I?” she said. “But that's ridiculous.”

Quincannon's gaze had roamed the small dressing room. Revealing costumes hung on racks and an array of paints and powders and various theatrical accessories were arranged on tables. He walked over to one, picked up and brandished a long-haired white wig. “Is this the wig you wore last night, Mrs. Carver?” he asked her.

There was no slippage of her composure this time, either. “I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Your portrayal of Letitia Carver was quite good, I admit. The wig, the shawl and black dress and cane, the stooped posture and quavery voice ... all very accomplished playacting. And of course the darkness and the candlelight concealed the fact that the old-age wrinkles were a product of theatrical makeup.”

“And where was I supposed to have given this performance?” Pauline Dupree's eyes were cold and hard now, but her voice remained even.

“The abandoned house next to Raymond Sonderberg's cigar store in Gunpowder Alley. Before and after you murdered Sonderberg in his quarters behind the store.”

“Murder?” the banker exclaimed in shocked tones. “See here, Quincannon! An accusation of blackmail is egregious enough, but murder—”

Pauline Dupree said, “It's nonsense, of course. I have no idea where Gunpowder Alley is, nor do I know anyone named Raymond Sonderberg.”

“Ah, but you do. Or rather did. Like Mr. Willard, Sonderberg was drawn to melodeons such as this one. My guess is you made his acquaintance in much the same way as you did my client, and used your no doubt considerable charms to lure him into your blackmail scheme.”

“Preposterous!” Willard cried. “Outrageous!”

“But you never intended to share the spoils with him,” Quincannon said to the actress. “You wanted the entire ten thousand dollars. To finance your ambition to become a serious actress, mayhap? A trip east to New York?”

An eyeflick was his only response. But it was enough to tell him that he'd guessed correctly.

“I give you credit, Miss Dupree,” he went on, “you planned it well enough in advance. You had two days to make your arrangements, after learning from Mr. Willard that I would be at the Hotel Grant last night. You found out, likely from Sonderberg, about the abandoned house next to his building; he may even have helped you gain access. Sometime yesterday evening you went there and made final preparations for your performance—applied makeup, arranged a rocking chair near the window, created the illusion of an old woman seated there.”

“Yes? How did I do that?”

“By placing a dressmaker's dummy in the chair, covering the head with the white wig, and draping the rest with a large shawl. This morning I found the dummy where you left it, in the foyer closet.”

Willard made disbelieving, spluttering sounds. The actress said, “And why would I have set such an elaborate stage?”

“To flummox me, of course. You knew I would follow Sonderberg from the hotel and that I would be nearby after he arrived home with the satchel. Your plan all along was to eliminate him once he had outlived his usefulness, and to do so by making cold-blooded murder appear to be suicide and staging an apparent vanishing act, must have seemed the height of creative challenge.”

Willard should have been swayed by this time, but he wasn't. His feelings for Pauline Dupree were stronger than Quincannon had realized. “My dear,” he said to his paramour, “you don't have to listen to any more of this slanderous nonsense—”

“Let him finish, Titus. I'd like to know how he thinks I accomplished this creative challenge he speaks of.”

“It wasn't difficult,” Quincannon said. “So devilishly simple, in fact, it had me buffaloed for a time—something that seldom happens.” He paused to fluff his freebooter's beard. “Your actions from the time you set the scene in the house were these: You left the same way you'd entered, by the rear door, crossed along the walkway, and were admitted to Sonderberg's quarters through his rear door. Thus no one could possibly have seen you from the alley. How you explained the old crone's makeup to Sonderberg is of no real import. By then I suspect he would have believed anything you told him.

“You waited there, warm and dry, while he went to the Hotel Grant. When he returned with the satchel, he locked both the entrance to the cigar store and the inside door leading to his quarters. You made haste to convince him by one means or another to let you have the satchel. Then you left him, again through the rear door, no doubt with instructions to lock and bar it behind you.”

“Then how am I supposed to have killed him inside his locked quarters?”

“By slipping around into the side passage and tapping on the window, as if you'd forgotten something. When Sonderberg opened it, raising it high on its hinge, you reached through the bars, shot him twice, then immediately dropped the pistol to the floor. Naturally he released his grip on the window as he staggered backward, and it dropped and clattered shut—the loudish thump I heard before I ran into the passage. The force of impact flipped up the loose swivel catch at the bottom of the sash. Of its own momentum the catch then flipped back down and around the stud fastener, locking the window and adding to the illusion.

“It took you no more than a few seconds, then, to run to the rear walkway and reenter the house, locking that door behind you. While the patrolman and I were responding to the gunshots, you drew the parlor drapes, removed the dressmaker's dummy from the rocking chair, donned the wig, and assumed the role of Letitia Carver. When I came knocking at the door awhile later, you could have simply ignored the summons; but you were so confident in your acting ability that you decided instead to have sport with me, holding the candle you'd lighted in such a way that your made-up face remained in shadow the entire time.”

A few moments of silence ensued. Willard stood glaring at Quincannon, disbelief still plainly written on the lovesick dolt's pooched features. Pauline Dupree's expression was stoic, but in her eyes was a sparkle that might have been secret amusement.

“Utter rot,” the banker said with furious indignation. “Miss Dupree is no more capable of such nefarious trickery than I am.”

“Even if I were,” she said, “Mr. Quincannon has absolutely no proof of his claims.”

“When I find the ten thousand dollars I'll have all the proof necessary. Hidden here, is it, or in your rooms?”

Again her response was not the one he'd anticipated. “You're welcome to search both,” she said. Nor did the sparkle in her eyes diminish; if anything it brightened. Telling him, he realized, as plainly as if she'd spoken the words, that such searches would prove futile, and that he would never discover where the greenbacks were hidden no matter how long and hard he searched.

Sharp and bitter frustration goaded Quincannon now. There was no question that his deductions were correct and he had been sure he could wring a confession from Pauline Dupree, or at the very least convince Titus Willard of her duplicity. But he had succeeded in doing neither. They were a united front against him.

So much so that the banker had moved over to stand protectively in front of her, as if to shield her from further accusations. He said angrily, “Whatever your purpose in attempting to persecute this innocent young woman, Quincannon, I won't stand for any more of it. Consider your services terminated. If you ever dare to bother Miss Dupree or me again, you'll answer to the police and my attorneys.”

Behind Willard as he spoke, Pauline Dupree smiled and closed one eye in an exaggerated wink.

* * * *

“Winked at me!” Quincannon ranted. “Stood there bold as brass and winked at me! The gall of the woman! The sheer mendacity! The—”

Always unflappable, Sabina said, “Calm yourself, John. Remember your blood pressure.”

“The devil with my blood pressure. She's going to get away with murder!”

“Of a mean no-account as mendacious as she.”

“Murder nonetheless. Murder and blackmail, and with her idiot victim's complicity.”

“Unfortunately there's nothing to be done about it. She was right—you have no proof of her guilt.”

There was no gainsaying that. He muttered a frustrated oath.

“John, you know as well as I do that justice isn't always served. At least not immediately. Women like Pauline Dupree seldom go unpunished for long. Ruthlessness, greed, amorality, arrogance ... all traits that sooner or later combine to bring about a harsh reckoning.”

“Not always.”

“Often enough. Have faith that it will in her case.”

Quincannon knew from experience that Sabina was right, but it mollified him not at all. “And what about our fee? We'll never collect it now.”

“Well, we do have Willard's retainer.”

“It's not enough. I ought to take the balance out of his blasted hide.”

“But you won't. You'll consider the case closed, as I do. And take solace in the fact that once again you solved a baffling crime. Your prowess in that regard remains unblemished.”

This, too, was true. Yes, quite true. He had done his job admirably, uncovered the truth with his usual brilliant deductions; the lack of the desired resolution was not his fault.

But the satisfaction, like the retainer, was not enough. “I don't understand the likes of Titus Willard,” he growled. “What kind of man goes blithely on making a confounded fool of himself over a woman?”

Sabina cast a look at him, the significance of which he failed to notice. “All kinds, John,” she said. “Oh, yes, all kinds.”

Copyright © 2012 Bill Pronzini

[Back to Table of Contents]

Department Of First Stories: AMAZING GRACE, SORTA
by J.L. Strickland

* * * *

* * * *

J.L. Strickland grew up in an east Alabama cotton-mill village where he worked for several decades as a weaver. During all of that time he was also writing freelance for professional humor markets and contributed many topical monologue jokes to the late-night talk shows, including work for Jay Leno and Bill Maher. He also has many non-fiction pieces to his credit, including a recent memoir for Southern Cultures magazine. This is the author's first work of fiction.

So, my Granddaddy Paw Jack's baby brother, Uncle Ave, though he lacked a heap, being a baby, comes rolling in driving his old yellow Mercury about dusk-dark, his sweat-stained hat low on his head and a mashed-up, hand-rolled cigarette dangling from the corner of his wide mouth. He parks the yellow Mercury near where me and Paw Jack was settin’ in green metal chairs under the chinaberry tree.

Alabama is hot anyway, but it was sho’ nuff hot that August day. We got global warming ‘bout a thousand years before ever'body else did.

“Ain't that Avie?” Paw Jack asked, squinting at the yellow car. Being nearly blind from cataracts, he had got to where he couldn't hardly tell who nobody was, even close up. Just a day before, when Paw Jack saw his own reflection in the glass door at the drugstore, he said “hidey” to it like it was somebody else. I ‘bout died laughing.

“It sho’ is Uncle Ave,” I told him. Paw Jack depended on me a lot since his cataracts got so bad. I guess it's a good thing me and Mama moved in with him after her and my daddy busted up. If there was a rattlesnake on the floor, Paw Jack might mistake it for his belt and pick it up.

Paw Jack wouldn't never mistake a snake for a necktie on the floor because he didn't have a necktie. He had cut pulpwood until he got too old and started having eye trouble—he didn't never wear no necktie. Paw Jack said a necktie made his big Adam's apple itch.

As Uncle Ave slid his tall, lanky frame out of the Mercury, an old rusty pistol fell out of his baggy overalls pocket. He picked it up off the ground and slowly creeped over to where we was settin'. Uncle Ave never got in no hurry for nothin'. Paw Jack ain't got but two outside chairs, and he says to me, “Bremen, get up where Avie can set down.”

(Okay—about that “Bremen” business. My mama and daddy first met up when he stopped and changed a flat tire for her on the side of the road at Bremen, Georgia. Mama said it coulda been a whole heap worse—they coulda struck when she was passing through Pascagoula, Mississippi.)

“What kind of gun is that?” I asked. Uncle Ave and Paw Jack favor a lot, tall and lanky with big hands, but Uncle Ave ain't friendly like Paw Jack. So, it waddn't no great big surprise when Uncle Ave ignored me. He eased down in the green metal chair, still holding the skinny long-barreled pistol in his big pulpwooder's paw. The gun had been silver to start with but was now freckled with spots of rust.

Uncle Ave started right off talking. “I'm gone kill Sara Jim, if I don't never do nothing else the rest of my life,” he said to Paw Jack. I knowed he meant it—Uncle Ave didn't never joke about nothing. Uncle Ave didn't know what a joke was.

If Uncle Ave ever even laughed about anything, he must have done it off somewheres by hisself, so's folks wouldn't see him.

Paw Jack leaned forward in his chair and looked in Uncle Ave's general direction, trying to get him in focus. “Do what?” he said. “You better hush that stuff, Avie.”

“No. Sara Jim's gone die and it won't be long,” Uncle Ave said. He looked mad enough to bite a ball bat in two.

“What in the dickens has got into you?” Paw Jack said.

Uncle Ave glanced at me and said, “The boy don't need to hear this. He ain't old enough.”

“Hear what?” Paw Jack said.

“I just turned twelve,” I protested. “And my name's Bremen.” I get durn tired of folks treating me like a child.

Uncle Ave frowned at me again and then the whole story come a-gooshing out. His young wife Sara Jim had took off on him. He was gonna track her down and kill her. There was a young man who run off with her and Uncle Ave was gonna kill him too.

Uncle Ave didn't get married until he was an old man. He had worked hard all his life and everybody said he had the first nickel he ever made. He run three pulpwood trucks, owned a small country store, and had honeybee hives over on the Chattahoochee River, making money ever kind of way.

Hand over fist, Paw Jack called it.

If anybody knowed the real story about how Uncle Ave got hooked up with Sara Jim, they was keeping it to they self. But one day, about a year ago, there she was, wearing a big diamond wedding ring and smiling and calling everybody “honey” and “sugar” and hugging folks.

Uncle Ave bought Sara Jim a brand-new red Mustang, all new furniture for his house, which had long been paid for, and put her running the little country store for him. Before she snagged Uncle Ave, Sara Jim had been working in a cotton mill and living in a trailer park, between husbands.

Sara Jim seemed too friendly and happy of a person to be married to Uncle Ave. It was like they didn't go together. Sara Jim had a grown son who was in the navy, but she was still not near as old as Uncle Ave. She was young-looking and pretty, always laughing and flirting with folks; while Uncle Ave was mostly sulled up about something all the time, looking mad enough to run through a brick wall.

Sara Jim must have decided they didn't go together neither, ‘cause she took off in the red Mustang Uncle Ave bought her; left with the young fella who delivered bread to the store. The bread man had a wife and three pore little young'uns he run off on.

Uncle Ave sat there in the green metal chair, staring off into space and cocking and recocking his old pistol. “What do you call a gun like that?” I asked again.

Uncle Ave looked at me and said, “I call it the gun I'm gone kill Sara Jim with.”

“I ‘speck it's Avie's old Smith & Wesson thirty-two-twenty,” Paw Jack said, squinting at the pistol. “They don't make ‘em anymore. It shoots a small bullet. Lots littler than a thirty-eight.”

“It's big enough to do the job,” Uncle Ave snapped.

“Avie, you need to calm yourself down,” Paw Jack said.

“I'll calm down when Sara Jim's six feet under,” Uncle Ave told him.

* * * *

I was already in bed that night when Mama got home from her cashier's job at Slow Bob's Quik Shop. Paw Jack's house ain't very big, and I could hear her and Paw Jack talking about Uncle Ave, who was staying the night and sleeping on the half-bed in the little back room at the end of the hall.

Mama said she knowed Sara Jim was trouble the first time she ever saw her—too flirty-fied for a woman her age. She acted like a teenager. Mama said Sara Jim must have been twelve years old when her son was born.

Paw Jack said he'd never got that good a look at her. He didn't get a good look at nobody no more, ‘cause of his cataracts. But he agreed that Sara Jim used way too much perfume. “I can still smell,” Paw Jack said.

“I wish I was Sara Jim's Avon lady,” Mama said. “I wouldn't need but one or two customers like Sara Jim. I could quit that stupid job at Slow Bob's Quik Shop.”

“Any honest work is good work,” Paw Jack said.

“Easy for you to say,” Mama answered.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Paw Jack asked.

“Nothin',” she said.

Mama didn't argue with Paw Jack like her and my daddy did. Her and my daddy would get in a cuss fight at the drop of a hat. And they didn't care which one dropped it, neither. They took turns.

Uncle Ave was up and gone before day the next morning. When he came back a week later, he was pulling a U-Haul trailer behind his old yellow Mercury. It was filled with all his personal belongings, from a banjo to a bowling ball. Uncle Ave didn't play the banjo or go bowling, but he liked to collect stuff. And he didn't want nobody messing with it, neither.

After taking a big skint-up suitcase out of the jumbled pile in the trailer, Uncle Ave closed the U-Haul and locked the door. He glared at me and said, “I don't want to catch you bothering the stuff in this here trailer—don't nothing in it belong to you.”

“Who said it did?” I asked.

Uncle Ave took his mashed-up homemade cigarette out of his mouth and growled. “Don't get smart with me, boy.”

“Bremen,” I said. “My name's Bremen.”

Over supper, Uncle Ave told Paw Jack that he had already had a buyer for his house in Lee County and all his furniture. And he had his pulpwood trucks and the store up for sale.

“What did you do that for, Avie?” Paw Jack said. “You got to have a place to live.”

Uncle Ave said he wouldn't need no place to live after he killed Sara Jim, ‘cause they would put him in the penitentiary after that, or the electric chair. He said he would just sleep in Paw Jack's little back room until then.

Uncle Ave said he had went down to the river to check on his bee hives and all the bees was dead. He said that was a sign his life was over.

Paw Jack said, “Don't be silly. That's just a sign your bees died.” But Uncle Ave just looked sulled up and didn't say anything.

* * * *

Uncle Ave disappeared for several days again before coming back. He sat under the chinaberry tree and took his bag of Prince Albert from his bib overalls, rolled a cigarette, lit it, and leaned back. He was so skinny that both feet touched the ground when he crossed his legs.

He didn't say nothing for a little bit, but when he was good and ready, Uncle Ave told us how he had hired a private detective named Tankersly, from Columbus, Georgia, to track down Sara Jim and the bread man.

“Soon as Tankersly finds them and tells me where they are, I'm killing them both,” Uncle Ave said. “I'm gone kill the bread man first, and let Sara Jim see it and let her think about it awhile. And then I'm gone shoot her—right between her eyes.”

Paw Jack tried to change the subject and said he didn't know they had private detectives in Columbus, Georgia. Uncle Ave said they had most everything in Columbus, Georgia, if you didn't mind paying for it, and knew where to look. Uncle Ave said Columbus, Georgia, was a army town and them soldier boys was in the market for most anything.

Uncle Ave went on to say that he had now sold everything he owned and put the money in the bank. He said he had did it so he could pay the private detective and then pay for a lawyer after he shot Sara Jim and the bread man. He wanted Paw Jack to have what money was left, if there was any.

He said Paw Jack could use the money to have the cataracts took off so's he could see again. “Even if they don't put me in the electric chair, I still won't need much money in prison,” Uncle Ave said.

I laughed at Uncle Ave. I said, “They don't put folks in the electric chair no more—they'll tie you down and stick poison in your arm so you'll die real, real slow. And get up a crowd of folks to watch, too.”

Uncle Ave flinched and glared at me like he might kick me. I stepped back; Uncle Ave was hotheaded. He was subject to doing most anything before he caught hisself.

“Now Avie, I don't like to hear you talking like that,” Paw Jack said. “Sometimes you sound like you ain't got a lick of sense.”

“I must not have a lick of sense,” Uncle Ave said. “Or I wouldn't have got messed up with Sara Jim. I gave that sorry heifer ever'thing she wanted, and ever'thing she hinted around she wanted, and looked how she done me.”

“You might be better off now that she's gone,” Paw Jack said. “Did you ever think about that?”

“I'll be better off when she's got six bullets in her,” Uncle Ave said.

Paw Jack got up from his chair and walked over to where Uncle Ave was sitting. He put his big hand on Uncle Ave's bony shoulder and said, “Avie, I can't let you shoot Sara Jim.”

“How you gone stop me?” Uncle Ave said.

“Some sort of way,” Paw Jack said.

“Some sort of way,” Uncle Ave snorted. Paw Jack said Uncle Ave had always been butt-headed.

* * * *

School started, and before long it was November, and Uncle Ave was still sleeping in the back room. I would see him sitting on the half-bed through the open door, smoking one of his hand-rolled cigarettes and staring a long yonder way off. He wouldn't even notice when somebody walked by.

Sometimes, when Uncle Ave couldn't sleep at night, he would sit out in his old yellow Mercury and listen to the radio. Some mornings, when I come out to catch the school bus, Uncle Ave would be slid down in his car seat, asleep, with his old hat over his eyes.

When Paw Jack said that Uncle Ave was gonna run his car battery down listening to the radio all night, Uncle Ave said batteries didn't cost that much. Uncle Ave didn't like nobody telling him what to do.

At first, Uncle Ave would drive down to Columbus every few days to check with the detective, or the detective would call Uncle Ave on the phone. He would bark real rough-like, “This here is Detective Tankersly; I need to speak to Mr. Ave Burton on a matter of utmost importance.” He sounded like he was somebody. Or tried to.

Then Detective Tankersly started coming to the house pretty regular, to report on his search for Sara Jim, and to get more money from Uncle Ave.

He didn't look like no detective I had ever saw on TV. He was a short, sawed-off, bald-headed fat guy who wore one of them sporty straw hats with the colored band and a short-sleeve floweredy shirt.

His fat, hairy arms was covered with tattoos. The first time Detective Tankersly come to the house, Paw Jack looked at his arms and asked him if he had rubbed up agin some fresh paint.

Detective Tankersly didn't know Paw Jack was nearly blind with cataracts. He just frowned and said, “No.” He must have thought Paw Jack was messin’ with him.

Detective Tankersly and Uncle Ave would go out and sit in the detective's new black Oldsmobile for a long time. I could see the detective shaking his head and throwing his hands in the air and jerking around like a holy-roller preacher. Uncle Ave would sit there in the car, frowning and taking it all in, gritting his teeth.

Somehow, Mama sweet-talked Slow Bob into giving her a day off for Thanksgiving. She told Paw Jack she was gonna cook a big Thanksgiving dinner for us. She said maybe it would cheer us all up.

That tickled Paw Jack to death. He said it was the first real Thanksgiving we would have since Grandmama died. He said he couldn't wait.

So, there we was, all of us sitting around the plastic dinette table in Paw Jack's old house, eating Thanksgiving dinner, when there was a loud knock at the door. It was the short, sawed-off Detective Tankersly looking for Uncle Ave. Paw Jack hollered for him to come on back to the kitchen.

It was cooled off some, and Detective Tankersly was wearing a black leather jacket that covered his hairy, tattooed arms. He stood in the kitchen door and said he needed to talk to Uncle Ave in private. But before Uncle Ave could get up, the fat fella sniffed the air and said, “Man—something sho’ does smell good in here.”

When Mama said, “Ain't you had no Thanksgiving dinner?” Detective Tankersly claimed he hadn't had time to eat, because he had been working real hard on Uncle Ave's case. So, Mama invited him to sit down and eat.

She didn't have to invite him but one time. I'm glad I waddn't standing between him and the eating table.

Detective Tankersly tore into his ham and turkey and dressing and casseroles like he hadn't had nothin’ to eat in a month. He gobbled the food until he was wheezing and beads of sweat broke out on his bald head. “Jesus, this is good,” he kept saying. “Hummm.”

After he finished his second helping of sweet potato pie and was slurping his coffee, he became more interested in Mama. Mama hadn't been there before when he dropped by and he had never seen her. Mama was still real pretty, even if she was thirty-five years old. She didn't have a bit of trouble getting boyfriends, but hadn't wanted one since her and my daddy busted up. She said living with Daddy had turned her into a man-hater.

Detective Tankersly was looking at Mama like he was hungry for something else. He asked Mama if her husband had already eat his dinner. I guess that was his detective way of finding out if she was married. When Mama said she didn't have no husband and didn't want one, his big round face lit up like the brake lights on a dump truck.

After he found out she waddn't married, Detective Tankersly started sho’ nuff talking to Mama. Even I could tell he was puttin’ on the dog for her. When he found out her name was Yvonne, but everybody called her “Flossie,” he worked her name into every sentence—Flossie this and Flossie that, ever other word nearly was Flossie.

Before the chunky detective left that night, he had told Uncle Ave that he was closing in on Sara Jim, and got some more money to hem her up; and he had made a date with Mama for the next Saturday night, two days away.

We learned his name was Sam Tankersly, Jr. But he didn't like nobody calling him Junior. He turned to me and said, “You hear that, boy?”

“Bremen,” I said. “My name's Bremen.”

* * * *

Mama said Detective Tankersly spent the next two days hanging around Slow Bob's Quik Shop flirting and getting on her nerves. She said Detective Tankersly must think Sara Jim and the bread man might wander into Slow Bob's Quick Stop by accident.

Mama was about fed up with Detective Tankersly by Saturday night, but she was sorta lonely. She hopped in the bathtub as soon as she came in from work early to get ready for their date. She said she promised to go out with him and she always tried to keep her promises, even if she was wondering if she had made a big mistake.

Detective Tankersly was there to pick Mama up before she got out of the bathroom. He was wearing a fancy red cowboy suit and looked like a big round Roy Rogers pumped up like a balloon. When he took off his white cowboy hat the overhead light reflected off his bald, shiny head.

He sat in the kitchen with me and Paw Jack and Uncle Ave, shooting the bull, until Mama come out all dolled up.

When he saw Mama, Detective Tankersly jumped up and shouted, “Dollbaby, I hope you're wearing your dancing shoes!” He did a little dance on the worn linoleum kitchen rug.

Detective Tankersly mighta been short, but he was so heavy his little jig shook the house and rattled dishes in the cupboard.

Paw Jack grabbed the table and said, “Gawdamighty!”

Uncle Ave grunted.

* * * *

I was asleep when Detective Tankersly brought Mama home around midnight. They woke me up arguing in the yard. I slept in the front room and could hear everything they said. They was talking real loud. I could always tell how mad Mama was by how loud she was yelling. She was letting it roll that night.

I got up and spied on Mama and Detective Tankersly out the window. Paw Jack had left the dim yellow porch light on for Mama, like she was a teenager, and I could see them plain as day.

Mama shook her finger in Detective Tankersly's face. She said she had just got rid of one blame drunk and didn't have no plans to hook up with another one.

“And why didn't you tell me you was married?” Mama screamed at him.

Detective Tankersly said, “Aw, hell, Flossie—ever'body's married. What's the big deal?” His words were all flat and mushy. Drunk man's words.

Detective Tankersly said he didn't know she was a stick-in-the-mud. He was wobbling and having a hard time standing up. His white cowboy hat was on crooked.

When Detective Tankersly tried to kiss Mama, she shoved him back and called him some names she usually saved for my daddy when he was showing his fanny. Detective Tankersly said he wasn't surprised she used that kind of language, because Sara Jim had already told him Mama was a hellcat.

Mama said, “What did you just say? When did you see Sara Jim?”

Detective Tankersly hemmed and hawed and first said he hadn't seen Sara Jim. Then he busted out laughing and clapped his hands. He leaned back against his car and started talking. He really said a heap too much.

“I'll tell you what, Flossie, it's like ‘is,” Detective Tankersly drawled. “That bread man come home a month ago. I gave him a hunnert bucks and he told me right where Sara Jim was at. I told Sara Jim if she made it worth my while, I wouldn't tell old man Ave where she was hiding.”

Mama said, “I knowed it. You've been beating Uncle Ave out of his money.” And then she called Detective Tankersly some names I hadn't heard before. Detective Tankersly kept on talking like Mama hadn't said nothing. He musta sho’ nuff been drunk.

“Of course, Sara Jim didn't have no money. So, we worked out another payment plan, if you get my drift.” Detective Tankersly laughed and raised his eyebrows up and down.

Then Detective Tankersly said, that old man's got aplenty of money. He said he was gonna tell Uncle Ave where Sara Jim was after he got enough out of him to pay off his car.

Mama told Detective Tankersly that he wouldn't talk so big if Uncle Ave was listening, and she was gonna tell him. Detective Tankersly told Mama to go get him, meaning Uncle Ave.

Uncle Ave's old yellow Mercury was parked in the usual place in the front yard. Be durned if Uncle Ave didn't open the car's driver's-side door and ease out. He had been sitting in the car all the time and heard ever'thing they said.

Uncle Ave walked over to Detective Tankersly's new black Oldsmobile and took the keys out and throwed them off in the dark. Detective Tankersly followed the motion of Uncle Ave's arm like a dog watching somebody throw a tennis ball. He stumbled back real surprised and said to Uncle Ave, “I can't believe you did that!”

Uncle Ave grabbed the front of Detective Tankersly's red cowboy jacket and asked him where Sara Jim was hiding. Detective Tankersly, drunk and wobbling, said, “Don't mess with me, old man.” He balled his fat fist up in Uncle Ave's face and shook it.

Uncle Ave told Detective Tankersly to wait right there, and went inside the house. As Uncle Ave started up the steps, Mama screamed, “Oh, lord—he's going after his gun.”

Mama followed Uncle Ave inside, begging him to not do something crazy. Uncle Ave ignored her and went into the little room where he had been sleeping. He came out with his rusty old pistol. Like he always did, Uncle Ave was creeping along, not in no great big hurry.

Mama run in Paw Jack's room to wake him up, but he was already awake and putting his pants on. When he came out in the hall, Uncle Ave was going through the screen door.

Uncle Ave stood on the porch and cocked the pistol and pointed it at

Detective Tankersly. “You tell me where Sara Jim is hiding, or you're a dead man,” Uncle Ave said.

Detective Tankersly staggered over to his car, opened the door, and fell inside it. He came back up with a big automatic pistol he had pulled out from under the front seat. The gun looked way too big for his little fat hand. He aimed the gun at Uncle Ave.

About that time Paw Jack got to the door and said, “Avie, wait. Put the gun down,” Then Detective Tankersly fired a shot at Uncle Ave. Bam! The bullet missed and thunked into the porch wall behind Uncle Ave and Paw Jack.

Uncle Ave cussed and pulled the trigger on his old pistol. The gun snapped. Uncle Ave pulled the trigger again and the gun snapped again. Click. Click.

Paw Jack said, “Avie, I'm trying to tell you something. I bent the firing pin on that pistol so it won't shoot.”

Uncle Ave turned and looked at Paw Jack like he had gone crazy. Uncle Ave said, “What the hell did you do that for, Jack?”

Paw Jack said, “I didn't want you to shoot Sara Jim. I didn't know what else to do.”

Uncle Ave started to say something, but Detective Tankersly had staggered closer to the porch and was using both his fat little hands to take aim at Uncle Ave. Bam! This time when Detective Tankersly fired his big pistol, the bullet hit Uncle Ave right in the middle of the chest pocket on his bib overalls.

You would never think a fella as skinny as Uncle Ave would make such a racket when he hit the floor. Wham! Dead as a doornail. Dust fell out of the porch rafters.

* * * *

When the police got there, after Mama called them, Detective Tankersly was still crawling around in the dark looking for his car keys. You woulda thought a big-shot detective woulda had a flashlight.

The cops all knew Mama from Slow Bob's Quik Shop. The oldest one asked her to tell them what had happened. Detective Tankersly was still so drunk he had trouble explaining what happened. He said he wasn't really that sure.

Mama finally said if Detective Tankersly didn't tell about the trick he was pulling on Uncle Ave she would slap it out of him. Mama was a head taller than he was.

Detective Tankersly swallowed hard and said to the police, “It was the old man or me.” Then he added, “My mama didn't raise no fools.” He grinned and nodded at the police like he had just said something real smart.

Detective Tankersly stopped smiling when Mama said, “Well, who the hell raised you then?” Mama could shuck it down to the cob.

* * * *

Uncle Ave didn't have much of a funeral. There was just a few of us in the funeral-home chapel, until Sara Jim showed up, wearing a black dress and holding a white handkerchief wadded up in her hand.

Sara Jim said, “I guess I'm not too welcome here.”

Mama said, “Damn—you're a heap smarter than I thought you was.”

Paw Jack didn't recognize Sara Jim at first because of his cataracts, but later said he recognized that loud perfume. He said it made his eyes water.

Sara Jim stood around a few minutes, trying to look sad. Then she got down to business. Paw Jack said Sara Jim put the hay down where the goats could get it. She asked Paw Jack if he knew where Uncle Ave put his will. She said that Uncle Ave left everything to her in a new will he made when they got married.

“Seems like I remember you running off on him,” Mama said real sarcastic, like she used to do to my daddy.

Sara Jim was trying hard to cry, but there wasn't nothing coming out of her eyes. “I mighta run off for a short while, but I didn't divorce him,” Sara Jim said, real pitiful-like. “Flossie, I just needed some time to think.”

“What was you and that young buck bread man thinking about?” Mama said. “Trying to decide on regular or whole wheat?”

* * * *

We all had to go to court for Detective Tankersly's trial. They didn't ask me nothing, and I saw the whole thing. But Mama and Paw Jack testified. Mama said that Detective Tankersly had got knee-walking drunk at the country music club where they went and she had to drive his car home. And he didn't tell her that he had a wife in Columbus, Georgia, neither.

Paw Jack said that he thought he might have done the wrong thing by fixing Uncle Ave's pistol so it wouldn't shoot. But it seemed like the right thing at the time. He said that Uncle Ave didn't never miss with that pistol and he'd saw Avie shoot the heads off black runner snakes with it.

Sarah Jim put on a show, crying and taking on over Uncle Ave's getting shot. She denied ever having done personal things with Detective Tankersly, even though he had asked her to do something ugly several times.

She said she was put off by Detective Tankersly's tattoos, even though she had a rose tattooed on her back, and several of her husbands’ names in private areas.

But none of it mattered ‘cause the jury said that Detective Tankersly acted in self-defense.

They said Detective Tankersly didn't know Uncle Ave's gun wouldn't shoot. Detective Tankersly's lawyer said that he woulda done the same thing. He told the jury that all of them woulda done the same thing too. I could see some of the men on the jury nod their heads. And a few of the women. Everybody's real bad when they talk about what they woulda done. I always noticed that.

Later, Paw Jack told me and Mama that he felt kinda responsible for Uncle Ave getting killed. No wonder—he wuz responsible. But I didn't say that. I ain't that stupid. But I was thinking it. Who wouldn't of? Anybody would think the same thing.

* * * *

So after all that, things rocked on awhile pretty normal. Paw Jack's eyes got worse and Mama was still working at Slow Bob's Quik Shop.

After Uncle Ave sold all his stuff and put the money in the bank, he hadn't made out no new will leaving his money to Paw Jack, like he promised. So Sara Jim got a lawyer and got what money Uncle Ave had in the bank, except what the lawyer got.

And Sara Jim got the U-Haul trailer full of Uncle Ave's stuff that had been sitting in Paw Jack's yard all that time. Detective Tankersly came and hooked the trailer up to his Oldsmobile. Sara Jim, that lyin’ heifer, was with him. They had a deputy sheriff with them in case Mama and Paw Jack started trouble.

Paw Jack didn't do nothin'. He said he was too old to tussle with a big redheaded deputy sheriff. But he said it woulda been a different story thirty years ago.

I said, “Would you a-whupped him, Paw Jack?”

“Whupped him and two more just like him,” Paw Jack said and made that clicking noise with his tongue that means he's serious. "Chirk, chirk."

Mama was at work when they come and got the trailer, but she was sho’ nuff stirred up when Paw Jack told her about it. She said Sara Jim and Detective Tankersly deserved each other. She said if they had a young'un together they might as well take the little bastard straight from the maternity ward to the penitentiary and be done with it.

Mama and Paw Jack was sitting at the kitchen table, smoking and drinking beer and talking about all this stuff. Paw Jack said he was really surprised that Uncle Ave put all his money in the bank. He said, “Avie didn't never trust banks. He usually hid most of his money. I've knowed Avie to put money in a clay jug and bury it in the ground.”

Mama suddenly jumped up and ran to the little room where Uncle Ave had been sleeping and started looking for money. She hadn't thought about this before. She was about to give up looking when she pulled Uncle Ave's old skint-up suitcase out from under the bed. It had $80,000 inside it, in hundred-dollar bills.

Mama let out a whoop so loud that Paw Jack almost jumped out of his brogans. The neighbors’ dogs started barking.

* * * *

So when the weather warmed up that spring, me and Mama and Paw Jack took a ride in Mama's new green Camaro, with white stripes, over to Pine Mountain for a picnic.

Mama still worked at Slow Bob's Quik Shop, but she had bought herself that Camaro and was sho’ nuff tickled about that. She parked the Camaro in front of Slow Bob's when she was at work. When things got too aggervatin’ for her, she would look out the window at her new ride.

Paw Jack got them cataracts took off and could see almost good as new. He kept saying how purty everything looked, even the weeds by the road and the mailboxes. We was sitting at a picnic table on top of the mountain, looking away off and eating baloney sandwiches, when Paw Jack started crying. That sorta scared me some. It sounded like he was choking. Like he mighta been having a stroke or something.

Mama said, “What's wrong, Daddy? I ain't never seen you cry before.”

Paw Jack said just looking at that beautiful view off the mountain made him realize just what a miracle blessing it was that things turned around to where he got his eyes fixed with Uncle Ave's money. And Mama got a new car. Who in the world could have seen all this coming? he said.

“Flossie, I thought I was blind for good,” Paw Jack sobbed. “I see the Lord's hand in all this—I always heard that God moves in mysterious ways. It's Him that's to be thanked and to be give the glory to.”

Now, that was sho’ nuff funny. Like Paw Jack didn't have nothin’ to do with it. I couldn't help bustin’ out laughing. I couldn't hold it in.

Paw Jack frowned up and said, “What you laughing at, boy?” He swallowed hard and his big Adam's apple bobbed up and down like a tomahawk blade.

I decided I better eat my baloney sandwich and change the subject.

“Nothing,” I said. “And it's Bremen. My name's Bremen.”

Copyright © 2012 J.L. Strickland

[Back to Table of Contents]

Fiction: FONTAINE HOUSE
by Terrie Farley Moran

* * * *

Art by Allen Davis

* * * *

Terrie Farley Moran's short stories have been published in several anthologies, one of the tales, “When a Bright Star Fades,” earning mention as a Distinguished Mystery of 2008 in Best American Mystery Stories 2009, edited by Jeffery Deaver. She is also the editor of the second anthology of the New York/ Tri-State Chapter of Sisters in Crime: Murder New York Style: Fresh Slices. A new collection of her short stories, The Awareness and Other Deadly Tales, is available in e-book format.

Silas Newberry wandered into the Fontaine House kitchen. He tucked a pen between the buttons of his yellow pique golf shirt, staining the placket with the same blue ink that smudged his fingers.

“I can't comprehend how this place functions. Research material disappears in the night. How am I supposed to get anything done?”

The four people in the kitchen continued with their chores. No one so much as glanced at Silas.

“Mrs. Garcia,” he addressed the chef-in-charge. “Have you seen Mr. Swanson? How can that man run this entire complex and never be available?”

Mrs. Garcia sighed. She smoothed her long white apron from chest to hip in a calming motion before plunging into the daily conversation.

“Mr. Newberry, everyone who works at Fontaine House is especially busy today. Miss Cyncy is flying down from New York with her wedding planner.” Mrs. Garcia practically sang those last words.

“Fontaine House hosts weddings all the time, while my research...”

“I'm not implying that your research about the Civil War isn't important. But Bellefontaine weddings have been celebrated at Fontaine House for two hundred years. Miss Cyncy's will be the first family wedding held here since nineteen eighty-seven. As an historian, you must admit that's significant.”

“All well and good, but I have discrepancies to reconcile and no means of doing so without further access to the house literature, and Mr. Swanson is among the missing.”

“Well, I really must get back to work. Duncan has been directed to pick up Miss Cyncy at the Fort Myers airport. The family is coming over from North Captiva Island for a welcome luncheon at one-thirty.” And Mrs. Garcia pulled her eyeglasses down from the top of her curly, russet-colored hair, pushed them on her nose, and turned away, leaving Silas Newberry to his own devices.

* * * *

Settled in the Mercedes with Duncan at the wheel, Cynthia Fremont Bellefontaine was talking on her BlackBerry.

“I already told him that Bellefontaine Investor Group is not interested in his project. I'm not going to forget he went to my brother to try to get the deal signed behind my back. Tell him I said no means no.”

Cyncy tapped the phone off, pursed her wide, red lips, and shook her head, sending long, dark curls circling like a halo.

“Ninety years after women got the vote, this idiot still thinks my little brother should tell me what to do. I'm the CEO of Bellefontaine Group, not Gerard.”

Greta Howell threw her arm around the slim shoulders of her old college roommate.

“As your wedding planner I insist that for these few days you are the bride-to-be, nothing more, nothing less. “I can't wait to see Fontaine House. My grandparents came to America in the fifties, so I can't fathom having a home in the family for so many generations.” Greta wiggled her elfin nose. “You must feel so settled, with such strong ties to this place.”

“Like all Americans, we were uprooted. The Bellefontaines wouldn't be here were it not for Le Grand Dérangement, when the English army forced the Acadians to leave the Maritime Provinces centuries ago. The Great Upheaval sent most Cajuns to Louisiana. Eventually, my ancestors drifted across the Gulf of Mexico to the Florida coast.”

Cyncy leaned forward in the seat. “Duncan, as we approach the bridge, please move to the slow lane so that Greta can get a view of the river.”

The car crested mid bridge and Cyncy pointed to the northeast.

“All that glorious foliage is Caloosahatchee Regional Park, more than seven hundred acres of open space, sharing the riverbank with our two hundred or so acres. As kids, my brothers and I used the park as the Fontaine House backyard.”

Within minutes, Duncan turned the car onto a long driveway lined with royal palms, leading to a red brick Federalist building. Greta began making mental notes. The words “horse-drawn carriage” came to mind.

Cyncy asked Duncan to veer off the main drive and slip behind the stables to the storehouse. Stables! Greta put a double check next to the horse-drawn carriage on her yet-to-be-written list.

The car stopped about twenty feet from a squat building clearly erected from a tube of outsized Lincoln Logs.

“Before you see the mansion or explore the grounds, I want you to see what's in here. My brothers and I spent days at a time playing with all the treasures we found.

“After the magic you worked in planning Lisa's wedding around her World's Fair theme, I can't wait to see how you use some of the antiques in here for my nineteenth-century wedding.” She pulled on the rusty door handle.

Just beyond the arc of sunlight that flooded the storehouse floor, a shadow moved, followed by an odd moan.

Greta took a long step back, wanting no part of whatever animal was hiding just out of sight.

“It's your storehouse.”

Cyncy tossed her hair.

“It's the Foundation's storehouse. All part of the historic...”

“Please ... help...”

It was a man's voice wavering with pain. Cyncy and Greta rushed inside and found an old man huddled on the floor, his body in a fetal curve. His yellow short-sleeved shirt was covered with grime, and a large splotch of something dark and wet was spreading across his chest.

Cyncy punched 911 on her BlackBerry.

The man's gaze was fixed on a spot far away. Finally he looked at Cyncy and whispered, “No. Not you.” He rolled his head in Greta's direction. “Her.”

Greta bent closer.

The old man reached for her sleeve but missed. His hand fell to the floor and he seemed to lose the strength to lift it again.

“The Civil War was wrong. Do you understand? It was all wrong.”

Sirens were getting closer. Greta tried to comfort the man but he was agitated and muttering about the Civil War in an ever-weakening voice.

Without warning, he gasped as if being smothered and his head dropped to one side. Greta fell to her knees and touched his wrist. It was too late to help him.

Emergency personnel crammed into the storeroom. Cyncy and Greta were herded outside and asked to provide their names and contact information to a sheriff's deputy.

Duncan was standing near a Lee County ambulance.

“Are you ladies all right? I called Mr. Swanson. He'll be here shortly.”

“There's an old gentleman.” Greta wrinkled her brow. “He's hurt and he's mumbling about the Civil War.”

“It must be Mr. Newberry. He's writing a book. The Bellefontaines were legendary for smuggling slaves to the coast, and helping the Union troops.”

Duncan replied.

He turned to Cyncy. “I hope he'll be okay.”

But it was Greta who shook her head.

A rumpled man came from behind the storehouse, his paunch bouncing as he tried to hurry.

He stopped to talk to a sheriff's deputy, who waved him to a man in a light gray linen suit. They spoke briefly, and then the disheveled man walked directly to Cyncy, continually mopping his brow along the way.

“Miss Cyncy, I apologize for this inconvenience. I've been assured that this, ah, disturbance will be cleared away momentarily. Please let me escort you to the main house.”

Greta followed silently. In what universe was a man's death merely an inconvenience?

Swanson led them through a well-designed garden to high, wide French doors, an impressive side entrance to the three-story building. Greta automatically began to plan wedding bouquets and table centerpieces made of hibiscus and gardenias.

The first room they entered had red velvet ropes and gold stanchions cordoning off ornately carved Victorian furniture and enormous, gilt-framed family portraits. Cyncy answered Greta's unasked question. “Public tours, three days a week.”

As they made their way through the library, the morning room, and several sitting rooms, they heard a high, imperious voice hammering questions:

“Mrs. Garcia, what on earth is going on here? Where is Swanson? Where is my goddaughter? Will someone please expel those vehicles from our grounds, and why is lunch not being served on time?”

Swanson opened one final floor-to-ceiling door and, after the storehouse, this scene was almost comical.

A woman with a tangle of gray hair piled high on her head was waving a pink parasol in ever widening circles.

Two men, younger than she, although far from young, were attempting to settle her, while a drab, stick-thin woman cowered in a corner of the foyer. A curly-haired woman wearing a long white chef's apron, hands raised in supplication, was trying to explain that there was some sort of accident.

The doyenne was having none of it.

“We do not have accidents at Fontaine House. We run an orderly Foundation.” She might have gone on forever if she hadn't spied Cyncy in the open doorway. She lowered the parasol and opened her arms wide.

"Cher."

Cyncy slipped into the old woman's arms.

"Na-nan sha, why you boude? Anger does not suit you. Greta, come and meet my na-nan sha, godmother dear, whom you may call Douveline. And here is her nephew, my dear Uncle Laddie.”

The taller of the two middle-aged men bowed slightly and caught up Greta's hand for a gallant kiss. “I am ever grateful to have been named Ladislas, as its diminutive makes me sound like a young blade. Welcome, my dear.” And his glance told Greta he was willing to behave as a young blade, and a randy one at that.

Cyncy swung Greta away from Laddie. “This is my cousin Clement,” She presented the stocky, balding man dressed in white slacks and a dark green golf shirt, “and his sister, Blanche.”

The woman in the corner took half a step forward and wriggled her fingers at Greta.

“Mrs. Garcia, I have missed your peppermint tea.” Cyncy turned to Swanson. “Please have the tea served with lunch in the breakfast room. Oh, and get the latest details from the storehouse.”

Swanson and Mrs. Garcia withdrew in silence.

The breakfast room was large enough to serve as a formal dining room in all but the grandest of mansions. A gleaming mahogany table, with more than two dozen chairs along its sides, dominated the room. Directly in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, a small table was set for six. The chair arrangement struck Greta as odd—one chair at each end and four lined along one side of the table facing the windows. Then she glanced outside and caught her breath.

The well-tended lawn and garden ended at a sandy riverbank. Sailboats and powerboats meandered the mile-wide Caloosahatchee River. Birds alternately soared and dove to water's edge. Greta imagined she could see fish popping to the surface.

Laddie noticed Greta's delight. “Louisiana Cajuns settled on the west Florida barrier islands in the seventeen nineties, living amid pirates and the Calusa Indians. A few Bellefontaines paddled their pirogues into the mouth of the Caloosahatchee, eventually creating inland settlements. Fontaine House, one of the earliest, survives to this day.”

Clement smiled. “Laddie is mellowing. He used to describe our ancestors paddling tiny pirogue canoes across the Gulf of Mexico from the Bayou directly to Fontaine House.”

Douveline interjected, “After we finish this delightful étouffée, we will leave for the island and the young ladies can get settled in the guesthouse.”

Greta looked at Cyncy.

“I thought we were staying here.”

“Don't be silly.” Douveline dismissed the very idea. “No Bellefontaine has lived in Fontaine House since the end of Prohibition. Cyncy should have considered a roaring twenties theme for the wedding—call it a Rum Runners Ball. In those days, the rum came straight from Havana.

“With all this clamor on the grounds we'll depart for the island immediately after lunch. What is it, Swanson?” The impatience in her voice was palpable.

“It's the sheriff's office. They wish to speak with Miss Cyncy and her associate.”

“Can't you tell them to come to the island in the morning?” Douveline heaved her shoulders with a dramatic sigh. “Oh, I suppose not. Show them in.”

Greta remembered the man in the gray linen suit. An officer dressed in Lee County tan and green trailed a few steps behind him.

“Sorry to intrude, ma'am.” He inclined his head in a sign of respect as he addressed Douveline. “I'm Detective Casitoa. This is Deputy Woods. We need to ask a few questions of the ladies who had the misfortune to discover Mr. Newberry.”

Douveline nodded. “Swanson, please escort Miss Cyncy and Miss Greta to the small sitting room, along with these officers.”

She threw a piercing look at Detective Casitoa. “We are leaving for the island in fifteen minutes. I expect your questions will have been answered by then.”

“That should be adequate, ma'am.”

Greta and Cyncy reaffirmed that they had gotten off a plane from New York less than an hour before they found the body and that neither of them had ever met Silas Newberry.

Cyncy asked the cause of the accident and both women were stunned by the detective's reply. “Not an accident. Mr. Newberry was stabbed.”

He had no further questions, and when he opened the door, Swanson was standing in wait, ready to escort Cyncy and Greta to rejoin the family.

Douveline was anxious to get under way. “I hope that was not too distressing for you, cher. Are you ready to leave? Blanche will ride with you and Greta. We're taking the Bellefontaine III back to the island.”

Blanche's shoulders slumped. She obviously didn't want to ride with her cousin, but she acquiesced to Douveline's directive.

Settled in the back of the Mercedes with Duncan once again behind the wheel, the two cousins seemed to have little to say to each other, so Greta asked Blanche about life on North Captiva Island. The question threw a flash of animation into Blanche's face.

“I love the island. There are no cars, no supermarkets, no noisy nightspots, just a few gift shops and some nice restaurants. Paradise! Each July we go to Martha's Vineyard for three months, but I find the Vineyard commonplace compared to North Captiva.”

“Does your brother enjoy living on an island as well?”

“Oh, Clement.” Blanche dismissed him with a backhand wave. “He and Laddie are so involved in Bellefontaine family this and Bellefontaine family that. Honor. Genealogy. History. I doubt either of them takes the time to appreciate the glories of living in so natural an environment.”

“A natural environment,” Cyncy mimicked, “that includes a ‘residents only’ airstrip, and where walking is so déclassé that every household owns a dozen golf carts to get from here to there.”

Cyncy's barb was enough to push Blanche back into silence.

Douveline, Laddie, and Clement were already settled in the salon of the Bellefontaine III, a fifty-foot Meridian 441 power craft, when the younger women joined them.

Laddie stood at once and offered refreshments to all three, although his eyes never left Greta, who was discomforted by his intense gaze.

She took a glass of sweet tea and hoped to move Laddie's thoughts to more acceptable territory by asking about the Bellefontaine Foundation's work.

“Our common great-great-grandfather, Felix Bellefontaine, who made a fortune in skins and salt, created the Foundation. Clement and I sit on the board. Douveline, of course, is Emeritus. We maintain copious research material about southwest Florida history, botany, and zoology. The entire property is a haven for underprivileged youngsters who learn tennis, equestrian skills, and, especially, swimming. You'd be appalled at the number of Floridians who can't swim.”

Clement interrupted. “As an aside, the house itself is so beautifully maintained that the board allows it to be rented for weddings and other festivities. The fees have supplemented the endowment to the point that Fontaine House will thrive long after we're gone.”

“Except for my na-nan sha,” Cyncy chimed in. “She will go on forever.”

Douveline nodded in acknowledgement that this was ever so true.

Laddie grabbed the conversation back from Clement.

“During the Civil War, Florida seceded from the Union. The Bellefontaines risked their lives and their fortunes to support the Union cause. Florida's blockade-runners were supplying salt and provisions to the Confederate Army. But not on our watch; not on our river.”

As he uttered the last sentence, Laddie puffed out his chest and lifted his head. Greta thought he lacked only plumage to be a full-fledged peacock.

Cyncy said, “Duncan told us that the man who was murdered in the storehouse was researching Fontaine House during the Civil War.”

“Murdered? In our storehouse?” Douveline's voice rose an octave with each syllable. “Impossible.”

Blanche seemed to disappear within herself, while Laddie and Clement both rushed to reassure Douveline that, obviously, a mistake had been made. Surely Mr. Newberry died of natural causes.

When it docked, the Bellefontaine III towered over the small flotilla of motorboats and sailboats tied to the family pier. Douveline, still shaken by the unwanted news about the death of Mr. Newberry, leaned heavily on Clement's arm as she led her entourage up the pathway to a super-sized bungalow, surrounded by broad-leaf banana palms and sea grasses.

A pall hung over the gathering. Both Douveline and Blanche had supper brought to their rooms. Cyncy and Greta ate shrimp gumbo on a patio overlooking the soft ripples of the Gulf of Mexico with Clement and Laddie, who both inquired about “plans for the upcoming nuptials.” As soon as dessert was over, the four went their separate ways.

On the guesthouse lanai, Cyncy threw herself onto a brightly striped chaise lounge. “What is wrong with them all? I've never seen Douveline so glum. Right now we should be gathered around the piano while she plays and sings old tunes. After her second brandy, the tunes get a little bawdy and everyone has a roaring good time.

“Dinner in her room suits Blanche, not Douveline. All over the death of a stranger?”

“You're being so dense. He was a stranger to us, but not to your family. If he was researching the history of Fontaine House, I'm sure your relatives knew him quite well. You know the pride they take in the Bellefontaine name. Fontaine House is a large part of the family legacy, even I can see that.”

“Mark my words, in this family, the surrounding publicity is far more an anathema than the actual murder.”

* * * *

After breakfast, a subdued buffet without Douveline or Blanche, Cyncy and Greta boarded a motorboat captained by a wizened graybeard named Isaiah. They sat starboard and watched the herons and egrets circle and then dive to find their breakfast swimming just below the water's surface.

Duncan was waiting on the pier. As they settled into the Mercedes, Greta asked for the latest information concerning the murder.

“I'm sure I couldn't say. The staff was questioned incessantly as to their whereabouts yesterday morning. The storehouse is locked and under armed guard.”

Cyncy pouted. “How can we examine the antiques in the storehouse if the police have it under lock and key?”

Greta replied. “We have so many other things to do. Let's begin with the menu and flowers. The storehouse will reopen long before we're finished.”

Cyncy's BlackBerry rang as soon as they settled in the kitchen with Mrs. Garcia. She walked to a quiet corner and held an animated conversation, after which she excused herself.

“A British firm has initiated a hostile takeover of a small company in which several Bellefontaine corporations have an interest. I'm going to Swanson's office to organize a teleconference. Since Le Grand Dérangement, the Bellefontaines have learned never to let the Brits get away with anything.” She flashed a broad smile to show she was at least partly joking, and was gone.

Greta and Mrs. Garcia were in deep conversation about menus and china when the chef unexpectedly stood up and opened a cabinet just above her desk.

“In all the confusion yesterday, I forgot about this.” She handed Greta a slim leather-bound book with tattered pages, held together by a green ribbon.

Greta looked at the title, “Recipes,” worn now, but originally tooled in gold. She turned to the flyleaf. “Property of Josiane Bellefontaine 1863.”

“Original family recipes. This is fabulous.”

“Yesterday, poor Mr. Newberry came to the kitchen, even though earlier I asked that he stay out of our way. He said he'd found a book about food, and since it's an heirloom, I should keep it safe. I tucked it in the cabinet, planning to look through the recipes. After what happened, I forgot about it until just now.”

“May I borrow it so Cyncy and I can look through it tonight? If we find any recipes to the bride's liking, I'll check with you to see how practical they would be for serving large crowds. Where did I put my purse?”

Clement came through the doorway. “Well, at least I found one of you! Where is my sprightly cousin? Out in the stables? Always one of her favorite haunts. Well, let's round her up. I've come to take you both to lunch.”

“Actually, Cyncy is in Mr. Swanson's office on a teleconference. I expect she'll be a few minutes longer.” Greta unconsciously slipped the old recipe book into her jacket pocket.

Cyncy appeared silently behind Clement. “Not so. The Brits are vanquished, at least temporarily. This kitchen is such an echo chamber. Did I hear a luncheon invitation?”

“You did, indeed. I've discovered a small but excellent barbeque pit in Cape Coral and am dying to show it off. Of course we must never tell Douveline. She would be appalled at the thought of Bellefontaines eating with their fingers.”

* * * *

The restaurant was an indoor/outdoor shack with lime green walls and a sandy floor filled with tables and chairs of the mix-and-match variety. Clement turned out to be an entertaining host, telling stories of sailing the Gulf from Florida to Louisiana while still a teenager.

“I've written a book called The Bellefontaine Heritage. It includes my personal exploits but focuses on the history of our illustrious family over the past two hundred years. I emphasize our role in the Civil War, as that is when our honor shines the brightest. The book is scheduled for release this spring. I've already arranged for distribution to libraries, colleges, and genealogy centers throughout the United States and Canada.”

“Then I guess you worked with Mr. Newberry. Wasn't he a writer?”

“Cher, he was hardly a writer, more of a researcher and not a very thorough one at that,” Clement harrumphed. “He was trying to find information about a relative, a Union soldier, killed in Florida during the Civil War. For some reason, Newberry fixed on Fontaine House. Neither Swanson nor I could convince him that the residents of Fontaine House supported the Union and would never harm a Union soldier. Still, Newberry was stubborn, poor chap. Excuse me, my phone.”

As he stood and answered the phone, he stumbled and grabbed onto Greta's chair to steady himself, and walked outside to take his call.

When Clement rejoined them, the women were discussing Greta's horse-drawn carriage idea and were anxious to get back to the house to find a way for the bride to slip out a side door, get in the carriage, and circle around to approach the driveway from the main gate.

Cyncy stood. “I'm sure we can find a route through the park. Afterwards, we can finish with Mrs. Garcia.”

Clement signaled for the check.

“Mrs. Garcia! Wait till you see what she gave me.” Greta reached behind her. “My purse!” She bent to look under the table. “I hung it on the back of my chair. It's gone.”

The waiter and hostess, busily moving chairs and shining a flashlight under the table, helped them search, but the purse couldn't be found.

After filing a police report, Greta got busy canceling her credit cards.

Cyncy suggested that they go back to the island for a peaceful, crime-free afternoon.

After a lengthy swim in the family pool, Greta took a shower. Some gremlins, as she'd begun to think of the domestic staff that functioned quietly and efficiently around the Bellefontaines, had straightened her room while she was swimming. She reached into the closet to find a fresh blouse and her hand brushed against the jacket she'd worn earlier. There was something hard in the pocket. The recipe book! It wasn't lost with the stolen purse.

She finished dressing just as the phone rang. Sheriff's deputies were in the main house. They'd recovered Greta's purse.

Cyncy and Greta could hear Douveline's querulous tone as they came through the garden door. “Clement, what were you thinking? Why would you take the young ladies to such a place? I thought you and Laddie went to the mainland on business.” She turned on Laddie. “Where were you while all this was going on?”

Cyncy dashed into the room and perched on the ottoman near Douveline's chair. “Please don't upset yourself. We had a lovely lunch. These things happen. It was no one's fault.”

Two deputies were standing to one side. Laddie thanked them for their consideration in bringing the purse to the island, and introduced Greta, who signed some papers and examined the handbag. “I don't understand. Nothing is missing. Not even the cash. Who would steal my purse and drop it in an alley behind the restaurant without taking anything?”

“A guilty conscience, my dear.” Laddie sat next to Greta and took her hand. “It's possible this thief, an otherwise decent fellow, reconsidered at the last moment. Or someone stepped into the alley to take a phone call or smoke a cigarette and scared him off.”

Greta slid her hand from Laddie's. “But the crook already had my purse. The hard part was done.”

“All this talk about crime and criminals. Detectives and sheriffs appearing at all hours. I have had quite enough. My nerves are shattered. Perhaps some brandy...”

“An excellent idea. Let's have it in your room, na-nan sha. When I was a child, you'd ask me to read Cajun poetry to you. Often I'd fall asleep on the futon in your dressing room. In those days we drank hot chocolate, but tonight brandy sounds delightful.”

Douveline brightened. “We have several volumes edited by David Cheramie. Blanche, please ask Mrs. Michaels to have them sent to my room and to make up the futon. And have someone retrieve Miss Cyncy's nightwear from the guesthouse.”

Greta noticed that Cyncy, so clearly capable of fending for herself, fell right into the family pattern of letting others do her most mundane chores.

Laddie offered to escort Greta to the guesthouse, but Douveline intervened.

“Whoever Mrs. Michaels is sending for Cyncy's things, Angela, I suppose, can walk over with Greta. She can turn down the bed, fluff the pillows, check the supplies in the kitchenette, and see that Greta is settled in for the night.”

Greta didn't think any of those tasks needed to be done by anyone other than herself, but to avoid alone time with Laddie, she cheerfully agreed.

Within a few minutes, a young woman in her early twenties, wearing the ubiquitous golf shirt, this one a bright salmon, appeared in the doorway.

“Angela, this is Miss Greta. She'll be staying in the guesthouse. Miss Cyncy will be staying with me.”

“Miss Cyncy's night things are on the bench next to the futon, which has been turned down for the night. I decided to get that ready before tending to Miss Greta.”

“Angela, you're a peach.”

Cyncy's familiar tone in speaking to a servant made Douveline wince, but she held her tongue.

On the short walk to the guesthouse, Greta asked Angela about her life on the island, and was not surprised to learn that the people who worked on the island generally didn't live there.

“I'm from a fourth-generation fishing family. We live on Pine Island, not far from where the Bellefontaines dock their boats when they go to the mainland. My father and brothers are commercial fishermen, mostly snapper, grouper, and snook.”

Greta tried to say that Angela's help was not necessary, but Angela cut her short with a curt, “It's my job.”

So Greta followed along from room to room as Angela talked about fish and family. “Odds are, if you eat in any number of restaurants in southwest Florida, my family caught your supper earlier in the day.”

She flashed a wide grin and closed the door to Greta's room behind her.

Greta glanced at her watch, surprised it was only eight-thirty. She turned on the television and was scrolling through the channel guide when she remembered the recipe book. She'd already decided to check with Angela's father before recommending a fish course. She also wanted to consult with Mrs. Garcia about several cornbread recipes ranging from sweet to savory. That left soup, salad, an entrée, vegetables, and dessert still to be determined.

In the recipe book, she came across a venison soup that looked intriguing but feared that the animal-rights activists would pitch a fit. Pepper Pot Soup might be a more prudent choice. She turned the page expecting another soup. Instead she found a note scribbled in a cramped hand, quite different from the flowing cursive of the recipes.

Greta turned the lamp to its highest wattage, held the book under the light, and read the message several times. She thought about calling Cyncy, decided against it, and went to bed with the book under her pillow for safekeeping. The more she tossed and turned, the more she feared that Silas Newberry was killed to prevent the note in the recipe book from becoming public.

Early the next morning, when Cyncy came back to the guesthouse, Greta was waiting. “I've discovered something that may cause your family great pain. I wanted to tell you before the others.” And she held out the recipe book opened to the note.

Cyncy read silently. Tears filled her eyes. “We never knew.”

“It may not be authentic.”

“It certainly looks authentic to me. Where did you get it?”

As soon as Greta said Mr. Newberry asked Mrs. Garcia to protect the heirloom, Cyncy nodded. “Someone killed Newberry to keep this hidden.”

“Who would kill over this?”

“Any Bellefontaine would kill to protect the reputation of any other

Bellefontaine, even one who died more than a hundred years ago.”

“You're talking about your own family. Let's have the book analyzed by an expert before you make wild accusations.”

“Not necessary. In north Florida there is a family named Fontaine, descended from slaves, who claim kinship to us. Since our family lore insists that

Bellefontaines never owned slaves, we thought it a sheer coincidence of names. Now I think differently. After I shower and change, we'll confront the family.”

“But...”

“There are no buts. I am a Bellefontaine. We take credit for what we do right, and we take responsibility for our wrongdoing. In this case, history must be cleansed to save the family honor. Even if no one ever discovers the truth, the stain marks us all.”

While Cyncy dressed, Greta speculated about the Bellefontaines. Who in this family, so spoiled that they didn't pour their own wine or turn down their bed covers, could muster the gumption to commit murder?

Surely not Blanche. She was the one member of the family who wasn't entangled in honor and status. And she was often too withdrawn to speak. How could she get close enough to plunge a knife into another person? Far too intimate.

Murder to protect the Bellefontaine name didn't seem out of line for Douveline, but she probably lacked the physical strength to actually kill. That left Laddie, a man who puffed with self-importance each time the name Bellefontaine was spoken, and Clement, who seemed too professorial to be a murderer but would surely be an ardent protector of all things Bellefontaine.

And if Bellefontaine hands could not be dirtied, who would they trust with their secrets? Swanson. His livelihood might depend on keeping the secret. Greta grabbed the phone, called Mrs. Garcia, and was disappointed to hear that Mr. Swanson was at the dentist the morning of “the unfortunate incident.”

Cyncy strode into the room, her demeanor brimming with resolve. She picked up the book, opened the front door, and waved Greta through it. “Breakfast, my dear.”

Douveline sat at the head of the table, sipping a cup of tea, while Mrs. Michaels helped Blanche select food at the sideboard. Clement and Laddie entered together sharing a laugh over some trivial comment.

“Gorgeous day!” Clement appeared to be in an expansive mood. “We should have planned breakfast on the patio. Perhaps lunch, Douveline?” He took a plate from Mrs. Michaels and sat on Douveline's right.

Greta took a cup of coffee and joined them, her eyes on Cyncy, who was piling food on her plate and joking as if she'd not a care in the world. And yet, in just moments, she would tear this family apart with her accusations of murder past and murder present.

Douveline dismissed Mrs. Michaels and asked what everyone had planned for the day.

Cyncy grabbed the opportunity. “Recipes. Mrs. Garcia gave me a family cookbook from the Civil War. We're going over the recipes to see if any would do for the wedding menu.”

Greta peered through her eyelashes. Everyone seemed perfectly normal, listening with half an ear as they ate breakfast.

Cyncy pulled out the recipe book and untied the green ribbon.

Douveline put her hand out as if to take the book but Cyncy held it to her chest. “Not yet, na-nan sha, I want to read something to you all.” She opened the book and read the flyleaf. “Property of Josiane Bellefontaine eighteen sixty-three.”

“Let me see that,” Laddie demanded, but Cyncy shook her head.

“There are dozens of recipes, all in Josiane's hand. Several are for meals I recognize from the Fontaine House kitchen. Still, there is an odd passage toward the middle of the book; a note written by someone else.”

“December 1864. The Yankee Army down to Fort Myers believe Master Bellfontaine is for the Union. When they eyes closed, he hunts runaway slaves. Sells us back to our owners. ‘Cept for me. He keeps me for his own pleasure. Be no more than a hour ago I saw with my own eyes Master run a long knife through a Union soldier. Poor man, he stop by where he shouldn't. Soon Master find me. My words writ here speak for me and that poor Union boy. Who find this, tell the Yankees what Master done.”

“Stop. For the sake of this family, stop.”

Clement stood. He stared at each Bellefontaine, willing them to believe as he did.

“I could not allow Newberry to desecrate our family honor with this—this supposition. I defended the Bellefontaine name.”

Not one member of his family filled the appalled silence.

Clement understood. “You may do as you wish. I have no choice but to go for a sail.”

He walked to Douveline and took her hand, and kissed it reverently. Then he turned to his sister and kissed her on both cheeks. “Be not afraid, little bird.”

Blanche took his hands and smiled, teary-eyed. “You haven't called me that since we were children. God keep you, my brother.”

Laddie stood and the two men shook hands. Clement nodded to Cyncy and left the room.

Greta froze momentarily. Clement was going to drown himself at sea. And no one was going to stop him. She started to speak but Cyncy grabbed her arm, squeezing tightly.

After a protracted silence, which grew to an eerie stillness, Douveline was the first to speak. “Sailing was always Clement's favorite activity.

“Blanche, in a few weeks you will implore the publisher to forgo release of Clement's book. Since we own a large portion of the company, I'm sure they'll comply.

“Laddie, don't you think it's time we upgrade the educational program at Fontaine House? Perhaps we could be clearer about the Civil War era. Please work with Swanson to see that the changes are complete within the year.

“Cyncy dear, please copy the recipes you might find useful for the wedding and return the book to me. It's very old; I'll lock it up for safekeeping.

“Perhaps I'll sit outside for a while. The Gulf is so lovely in the morning.”

Copyright © 2012 Terrie Farley Moran

[Back to Table of Contents]

Fiction: LOSING IT
by Melodie Johnson Howe

* * * *

Art by Mark Evan Walker

* * * *

A new story by Melodie Johnson Howe is always something to look forward to, and now there's a collection of her stories available from Crippen & Landru. Shooting Hollywood: The Diana Poole Stories follows middle-aged actress Poole through cases steeped in the glamour and greed of the movie industry. The author was herself a Hollywood starlet (one of the last of them, she says!) before turning full-time to fiction writing.

Callie Taylor held the large flat hand of Anne Borden, who was sitting across from her. As she glided the polish brush down her new client's nail, leaving a streak of shiny red, she tried not to look at the shawl the woman was wearing. Callie felt a growing unease as she continued with the manicure.

The shawl was paisley-print cashmere woven in muted earth colors. It was very expensive. Callie knew this because she had bought it, or one just like it, on a whim.

It had been late at night and Mike, her boyfriend, was in the living room working on his screenplay, which he never seemed to finish. She was in the bedroom aimlessly searching the Internet. She was drawn on the Saks Fifth Avenue Web site to a photograph of the shawl thrown carelessly around a model's thin shoulders. Its rich tapestry oozed culture and quiet money and cost over a thousand dollars. If you can't afford to buy something, Callie had thought, why not pick the best? If you can't pay for it, what does it matter? In an odd way it was like being rich, she reasoned—you can have whatever you want. She was smart enough to know that this was two-in-the-morning logic, but it didn't keep her from placing the order for the shawl and hitting Send. She didn't even hold her breath when she did it.

Callie leaned back on the bed, suddenly terrified at her daring. She had spent most of her life being tentative, even fearful. She knew she was working below her abilities. She knew she depended on Mike to keep her ... what? Safe. She believed in keeping her head down, which if you thought about it was perfect for a manicurist.

When the Saks Fifth Avenue box arrived, it was as if it were her birthday, though she had just celebrated her twenty-third a month ago. Mike had given her one of those cards where you hit a button and it played some rappers singing bow-wow-wow and gave her age in dog years.

She opened the box, lifted the snow-white tissue paper, and pulled out the shawl. Draping the soft, lush fabric over her shoulders made her feel beautiful. She peered into the mirror. She didn't just feel beautiful, she looked beautiful. The earth tones complimented her red hair, which waved in thick curls around her pale oval face, and turned her hazel eyes into a sparkling emerald green. The paisley-print shawl gave her sophistication she never thought she'd have.

Pox, Mike's dog, ran into the room. Part pit bull and part boxer, he grabbed a fringed edge and tugged and shook the shawl. When she'd finally wrestled it from his mouth, she discovered his sharp fangs had left two holes in the fabric.

Distraught, she slumped on the end of the bed and cried. How could she return it now? How could she pay for it? Why did everything in her life become flawed or marred? Callie knew what happened to the shawl was because she had not kept her head down. She had dared to look up.

Wiping her face with her hand, she stood, threw on the shawl again, and faced the mirror, trying to see where the holes were. To her relief, they disappeared in the folds. Smiling at her image, she clutched the shawl more tightly to her body and decided the two holes had made the shawl hers. After all, she could pay it off on her credit card little by little. Looking down at Pox, who was now wiggling his rear end, she patted his head and told him he was a good boy.

A couple of nights later, she and Mike went to a movie and then to the Starlight Lounge on Melrose Avenue. Wearing her shawl, she sat in a booth drinking dirty martinis with him and arguing over the film. He thought it was hilarious. She thought it was juvenile.

“Then you won't like my script,” he snapped, jutting out his large jaw, which, for some reason Callie could never figure out, made him look more vulnerable than strong. “It's about two man-boys. A bro-mance.” He shoved a lock of dark hair off his forehead. “What's that poncho kind of thing you have on?”

“It's a shawl.”

“It doesn't look like you.” His icy blue eyes assessed her.

“Why?”

He shrugged. “It's just not you. You're more ‘everyday.’ You know?”

She pulled the shawl protectively around her and said nothing.

Mike continued, “You're average. Normal. The poncho's making some kind of a statement. It looks too expensive. Like something your clients would wear.”

Callie wondered why she shouldn't make a statement, why she shouldn't wear something that looked expensive. “Are you saying a manicurist can't wear what her clients wear?” Hurt, she tossed back her second martini and ordered another.

“God, what's wrong with you? I was just saying it doesn't look like something you'd ... oh, forget it.”

They sat in tense silence. Mike yawned, not covering his mouth. His way of saying he was bored with her. Then Callie asked sweetly, “How's your script going?”

“It's almost done. And I have a producer, a guy who's really interested in it.”

“The same person you've been meeting for drinks?”

“Yeah. He's connected. I think it's going to happen.”

“That's great,” she said, knowing it would never happen. That nothing would ever happen. That nothing would change. She would continue paying for most of the rent and all of the dog food. And now for the shawl. She decided to get drunk.

When they stood up, both tipsy, he possessively draped his arm over her shoulders, and they walked like that back to his car.

It wasn't until four in the morning that she woke up next to a snoring, sated Mike, her shoulders cold, and felt something was missing. She hurried to the shelf where she kept the shawl folded in tissue paper. It wasn't there. She ran into the living room, turning on all the lights, and searched for it.

Mike stood in the doorway, rubbing his sleepy eyes. “What are you looking for?”

“My shawl. It's gone. It must've fallen off. How could I not notice that? How could you not notice it?”

“We had a lot to drink. You probably left it in the booth at the Starlight. You can get it when they open. Come back to bed.”

“People steal things, you know.” Tears rimmed her eyes.

“Who would want to steal that?”

“It cost over a thousand dollars,” she cried.

His blue eyes widened and his mouth fell open. “You paid a...”

“Yes!” She collapsed onto the sofa and buried her face in her hands.

“Christ.” Mike shook his head and went back to bed.

Later that day she retraced their steps from the Starlight Lounge to Mike's car. She asked all the people working in the bar if they had seen it. None had. She asked the nearby shop owners and got the same reaction. She searched and searched, but she never found it.

Now, a few days later, she was putting the sealer coat on Anne Borden's nails and trying to keep her eyes off the shawl, trying to figure out how she could determine if it was hers. Then she remembered Pox and took a deep breath.

“Do you have dogs?” Callie looked up at her and smiled, trying to keep her voice calm.

“God, no. They shed.” She shook her head vehemently. Her brown hair was cut short. It was a style Callie had seen on many middle-aged women who had settled into the minutia of their lives. Or who had just decided to give up. Her darker brown eyes, the saddest Callie had ever seen, brutalized her almost-pretty aging face.

Anne Borden continued talking to the woman next to her who was getting a pedicure. “The house would be perfect for you. It has architectural integrity. It's in Holmby Hills. 2222 Jacaranda Lane, not far from the Playboy mansion.”

“How many bedrooms?” the woman asked.

“Six, and eight bathrooms not including the powder room.”

“Too big for me,” the woman said. “We're downsizing. Ouch!” She jerked her foot from Mia's hands.

“Sorry.” Mia lowered her Asian eyes.

Callie repressed a grin. Mia always managed to jab a client she didn't like.

She glanced up at the sad-eyed woman again and took a deep breath. “You have holes near the hem of your shawl.” Even though she couldn't see them she pointed to the area where she knew they would be—if it were hers.

“Really?”

“Right there.”

Careful not to smear her polish, Anne Borden lifted up the hem. Light shone through the two punctures Pox had made. Callie's stomach tightened as she tried to control a growing rage.

“So there are,” the woman said blithely. “I never noticed. Moths.” She let it drop from her hand.

“Is it a Liana?” the other woman asked her.

“I never pay attention to the names of designers. If I like it, I buy it.” Anne Borden waved her hands in the air.

“Yes, it is!” Callie's voice was raised and sharp.

The two women stared at her.

As she flushed a hot red, Callie's eyes darted around the Beverly Hills salon. The owner, Frederick, was discussing hair length with a young up-and-coming actress. If she were a star, he'd be seeing her in his private room. Sleek hairdressers aimed their humming blow-dryers like guns at the heads of women who looked uneasily into the ruthless mirrors. Music blared. If she made a scene about the shawl, the fast-paced rhythm of the salon would come to a stop. Frederick would take the side of the client. She could be fired. How could she pay off the thousand dollars without a job?

“Thank you, Callie,” Anne Borden was standing, the shawl crooked on her heavy shoulders. “You're very good at what you do.”

Callie thought she'd heard a warning in the compliment.

Waving goodbye to the woman getting the pedicure, Anne Borden strolled to the reception desk to pay.

Callie stared at the crumpled bills she had left on the table and began to straighten them. Three dollars. Her tip. Ten would've been fair. She watched the woman pay at the reception desk. She couldn't just let her go. She had to say something. If only she had the receipt with her. But what good would that do? So she let her walk out of the salon and disappear down Rodeo Drive.

She slumped back in her chair as the intense buzz of the salon zipped around her head. Silently she berated herself for being a coward. For not standing up for what was hers. But wasn't buying the shawl a brave statement? Wasn't that what Mike hadn't liked about it? The shawl had made her look different, not “everyday,” as he had described her. Maybe she had more courage than she thought. Stuffing the three bucks in her pocket, she decided to get her shawl back.

* * * *

It wasn't much of a plan as plans go. Callie had gotten Anne Borden's phone number from the receptionist at the salon. Using an assumed name, she called her and made an appointment to see the house she was selling. Once there, she would confront her about the shawl.

Now Callie parked her Corolla on Jacaranda Lane but out of view of the mansion. Feeling out of place in this neighborhood of forty-million-dollar mansions lounging behind gates and hedges, she sat for a moment, gathering her courage.

Then she got out of the car and walked to the leaf-scattered driveway of number 2222. The iron gates slouched open. In fact, they were rusted open. Surprised, she saw that the garden was neglected and overgrown. The mansion's thick retaining walls were streaked with dirt and needed a good washing down. The noon sun shined harshly on its roof, revealing missing slate tiles. The wood framing around the windows and French doors was splintered and dried out from the same relentless sun. An air of disappointment hung over the entire estate like smog. Even the street, Jacaranda Lane, was lined not with purple flowering jacaranda trees but with tall, skinny palms. Nothing is what it claims to be in Southern California, Callie thought, a little unnerved.

At the top of the drive, her heart was racing and her palms were sweating not from the walk but from nerves. The front door flew opened before she could ring the bell.

Anne Borden, wearing the shawl, greeted her. “Come in, Callie.” She stuck out her manicured hand and pulled her into the house, the heavy door slamming firmly behind them.

Stunned, Callie stood in a vast marbled foyer where a center staircase curved seductively down from the second-story landing; its intricate brass railing was dull from lack of polish.

“How did you know it was me who called?” Callie's faltering voice trailed up and up into a stained-glass dome in the high ceiling where it echoed around and finally faded away.

“Since the house isn't for sale and I have your shawl, I assumed, no, I hoped you'd have enough gumption to confront me about it. Gumption. Not a word that's used much anymore, but it should be.” She smiled, but it didn't brighten her cheerless eyes. “Come in and have a drink.”

“Just give my shawl back to me, and I'll go.”

“Aren't you interested in why I have it? Why I went to you to get a manicure? Why I pretended to have a house for sale?”

“I don't want any trouble, Mrs. Borden.”

“Not desiring trouble doesn't mean it's not going to come your way and knock you down and rip your heart out. Call me Anne.” She turned on her heels, dramatically throwing one long end of the wrap over her shoulder, walked through the cold, empty living room, and disappeared into a smaller room.

Left alone, Callie fought the urge to run out of this tomb of a house, get into her car, and drive back into her safe life. “Safe.” She whispered the word so it wouldn't echo. But it still reverberated back at her like a ghost murmuring in her ear. Chilled, she swallowed back fear and walked through the living room, the sound of her footsteps tap, tap, tapping on the marble floor.

“Sit, sit.” In the small room, Anne pointed to the chintz-covered sofa, then continued to make two gin and tonics from an antique tray table.

“Nothing for me. Anne.” Callie spoke the name carefully, as if she were learning a new language. Sitting, she took in the den. Books filled it. The slouchy chair matched the sofa. Brass floor lamps hovered nearby. A fire was lit in the brick fireplace. She loved the coziness of the room and allowed herself to relax slightly.

“I know you like gin,” Anne said. “I saw you drinking martinis at the Starlight Lounge.”

“You were there when I lost my shawl? You found it and took it?”

“Yes, I was alone at the bar. My husband and I used to go there often.” She handed Callie the drink, then settled into the chair with hers. “I could have rushed outside and given it to you, but I decided not to.”

“Why?”

“Because I know good deeds can go horribly wrong. And here I am about to do one.” She laughed and shook her head.

Setting her untouched drink on the coffee table, Callie dug in her purse. “I brought the receipt.” She held it up.

“Callie, your ownership isn't in question. Your life is.”

Callie tensed. “Are you threatening me?”

“Well, not in the sense of murdering you. I've already committed one, and I can tell you quite honestly I have no need to commit another. I think one murder in a woman's life is enough, don't you?”

Letting the receipt fall back into her purse, Callie asked falteringly, “You actually killed someone?”

“My husband.”

Callie froze. She was alone with a madwoman.

“I'm not crazy,” Anne said as if reading her mind. “You don't have to be insane to murder someone. In fact, pushing my husband down the stairs was one of the sanest things I've ever done. But unlike the truly psychotic, I suffer from guilt.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Callie eyed the door, her only means of escape.

Anne sighed and took a long swallow of her drink. “Because I don't want you to be like me.”

“I could never kill anyone.”

The woman tilted her head and studied Callie. “I thought that too. I didn't love my husband. I tried, but facts are facts.”

“Then why did you marry him?”

“He was there. I was there. We'd been living together. We were used to each other. It was time to change my life or marry him. I wasn't brave enough not to marry him. I wasn't brave enough to find out what I really wanted—not needed, but wanted.” She arched her eyebrows. “Sound familiar?”

“I'm not getting married,” Callie said defensively. Then asked, “Wouldn't divorce have been a better solution?”

“Of course. But logic had nothing to do with my quiet, seething rage at him. I don't mean to mislead you. It wasn't a crime of passion. It was a crime of boredom. Before he ate, he'd wipe his silverware clean with his napkin, even at home. When he was talking, he'd take off his glasses and clean them, stopping in the middle of a sentence, leaving me standing, waiting until he got every speck off and had them adjusted perfectly on the bridge of his nose before he'd continue. In fact, he was cleaning his glasses when I shoved him down the stairs. I had come out of the bedroom, and he was standing on the top step, rubbing furiously at some imaginary smudge. I came up behind and gave him a good push. He fell headfirst down the steps and landed on the marble floor, breaking his neck. He held onto his glasses all the way down.” She took another sip, ice rattling, slice of lime bobbing in the crystal glass. “The police assumed he'd started down while cleaning his specs and missed a step.”

Transfixed, Callie asked, “Do you miss him?”

“No.” She tapped her finger against her pursed lips, then added, “But I miss the part of me that died because I killed him.” Standing, she stared coldly down at Callie. “Now this is where I am going to hurt you.”

Chest tightening, Callie leapt to her feet and ran to the door, grabbing for the knob.

“Your boyfriend Mike is seeing another woman,” Anne said flatly, moving to the drinks table for a refill.

Hands trembling, Callie stopped and turned. “How do you know?”

“I've seen him with her at the Starlight bar. They sat next to me one night. She's blond, fake tits, listens to him intently, and laughs at his jokes. Seems to love the script he's writing. She's perfect for him. But he'll marry you because you're safe and you'll take care of him. And you'll marry him because you can take care of him. Because you're used to each other.”

Fighting back tears, Callie felt hurt and angry. “He told me he was meeting a producer. How do I know you're not making all this up?”

“You know. I knew when my tidy husband started to have an affair. One more thing. You didn't forget your shawl when you left the bar that night. He purposely pushed it off you when he put his arm around your shoulders. Why would he do that?”

“He said I was too normal, too ‘everyday’ to wear it.”

“Maybe he saw a change in you. Maybe he sensed danger to his own careful life, like I did.”

“I don't want to hear any more. I just want what's mine. I want my shawl back.

Anne studied her for moment. “No, I can't do that.”

“You have no right to keep it. I'm going to be paying on it for a year.” An uncontrollable fury rushed through her, and she swung her purse at Anne Borden, first knocking the glass from her hand then whacking her on the side of the head. The woman staggered backwards then regained her balance, her hand going up to her bruised cheek.

Horrified at her own rage, Callie burst into tears. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But you're being so unfair. It's all unfair.”

“Get him out of your life, Callie, without killing him. Then you can have your shawl back. I promise.” Turning her back on Callie, she picked up a fresh glass and began making another drink.

Callie thought of jerking the shawl off this woman who was trying to destroy her life. Instead she mumbled, “Thank you,” and walked out of the house, dazed.

* * * *

Callie smiled at her reflection in the bar mirror. She wore a blond wig she'd bought at the beauty-supply store. Her eyes were defined by false lashes and inky black liner and her lips shined a deep red. She looked like a Woman of the World. A woman whobeen around. A woman to be dealt with. One guy had already hit on her.

The Starlight Lounge was getting more crowded, but there was still no sign of Mike. He had told her earlier in the day that he had another meeting with his producer. She looked down the bar and saw a lone pretty blonde sipping a white wine and checking her watch. Was she waiting for Mike? Callie tried to see if her breasts were fake.

Just when she was sure Anne Borden was a cruel crazy woman, the lounge door opened, and Mike sauntered in. His dark hair flopping down his forehead, he scanned the room. Callie's heart stopped as he didn't head for the woman at the end of the bar but instead made a beeline for her, grinning ear to ear.

Pausing, confused, he mumbled, “Sorry. Thought you were someone else.”

“Mikie!” The other woman waved at him. “Here I am.”

“God, all blondes look alike to me.” He turned and hurried to her.

She laughed at his joke, then they kissed long and hard.

Callie felt her stomach drop. Felt her very existence tilt like a sinking ship. She rubbed her forehead. The wig felt tight. She paid for her drink and left.

Sitting alone on her bed, Callie petted Pox and thought he had the same knowing sad eyes that Anne did. She could tell he sensed change coming, and it made him nervous. Finally, at one o'clock, she heard the front door open and close and the jingle of Mike's keys.

Heart thumping, she stood up and glanced at herself in the mirror. She adjusted her blond wig and checked her over-the-top makeup.

Swaying into the bedroom, Mike stopped dead, gaping at her. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

“Callie.”

He angrily shoved his hair back from his forehead and leaned forward, staring at her. Recognition entered his blue eyes. He forced a laugh. “God, you almost gave me a heart attack. I thought there was a strange woman in the apartment.”

“Some men might find that exciting.”

Mike glared at her. “You don't look like yourself.”

“Good.” As Callie talked she began to feel stronger, even formidable. She suddenly understood the dual personalities of Clark Kent and Superman. The power and freedom a disguise can give you.

“Are you having some kind of breakdown? First that poncho thing, and now you've got too much goo on your face and you've bleached your hair.”

“It's a wig. The real Callie is right underneath. And no, I'm not nuts.”

He looked petulant. “What's happening to you?” His big jaw tightened. “You look like a slut.”

She froze, waiting for his remark to hurt her. But it didn't. “Does your producer look like a slut? She's blond.”

“Is that why you're dressing like this? She doesn't mean anything to me.”

“Why do women always mean nothing to men when they're caught screwing them?”

“I don't mean nothing. I mean...”

“What do you mean?”

“She's not you.”

“Who is she?”

“She's just some ... some...” He gestured helplessly then gave up.

“I want you to be honest about one thing. Did you push my shawl off my shoulders that night?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Please just tell me the truth. I have to know.”

“I didn't know it cost a thousand dollars.” He slumped against the dresser.

* * * *

Callie missed the dog.

Her only regret, she thought as she drove up the drive to Anne Borden's house. She had called her earlier, and they had agreed on a time for her to come by and pick up her shawl. Callie had fantasized about Anne and she becoming friends, and then she would remember Anne had killed her husband, and she knew they could never be friends.

Getting out of the car, she noticed the front door was ajar. She pushed it open and stepped into the foyer. “Anne?” The name ricocheted off the glass dome.

When there wasn't any answer, she walked through the living room and into the den. “Anne?”

There was a gin and tonic on the coffee table. The shawl was folded neatly next to it. A note rested on top. Callie picked it up and read: “Have a drink on me. Seeing your courage gave me courage. Take your shawl and wear it with a swagger.”

Callie draped the shawl around her, feeling its soft warmth. Walking back into the living room, she wondered for the first time where all the furniture had gone. Had Anne Borden sold it? Was she cleaning out her life?

In the foyer, Callie called out Anne's name again. Listening to her own voice echoing back at her, she walked up the stairs, holding tightly to the brass railing. On the landing, she paused before an opened door, then went in.

Anne Borden lay on her back in bed staring up at a dusty chandelier. Her eyes no longer looked sad, just empty. A gaping hole was where her temple should have been. A gun rested in her opened palm. Blood and bone spattered the wall behind her. A note lay on the end of the bed.

Callie edged closer and grabbed it. “Callie, if you are reading this then you are braver than I thought. I'm sorry for the mess. My husband would have detested it. But somehow helping to free you from your unsafe ‘safe’ life has freed me to pay my debt. Thank you.”

Callie closed her eyes for a moment, then took the long end of her shawl and threw it back over her shoulder with a daring that felt new but not uncomfortable. She walked out of the bedroom and back down the stairs.

Sitting in the warmth of her car, Callie dialed 911 on her cell. Then she leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and waited for the police.

Copyright © 2012 Melodie Johnson Howe

[Back to Table of Contents]

Passport to Crime: THE CRIME BEHIND THE FORTUNE
by Tore Boeckmann

* * * *

* * * *

Dozens of Tore Boeckmann's short stories have been published in mainstream publications in his native Norway. This story appeared in Norwegian in a shorter version and was expanded by the author as he did his own English translation. He now lives in Buffalo, New York, and is the author of a number of academic articles on Ayn Rand. He edited for publication Ayn Rand's The Art of Fiction and lectures on her aesthetics.

Translated from the Norwegian by the author

Behind every great fortune lies a crime. Those words are whispered whenever Ragnvald Storm comes walking down the street. But only behind his back, of course.

The whole country knows about the home-brew hobbyist who, after countless experiments in a shack by the wharf, discovered that a particular extract from seaweed hastens the malting of barley. Everyone has heard how Storm started Stormweed Ltd. with half a million Norwegian kroner from his great aunt—a loan which made the aunt immensely rich (although she later died and willed everything back to Storm). Most people are amazed that this formerly obscure person, this Storm, now supplies Europe's largest breweries, employs nine hundred people, and runs the most profitable business in the northern provinces. They can't explain it. Or rather, they can explain it—but only by ascribing it to a hidden and sinister crime.

They are right to do so.

Of course, they don't really know. Only two people know, and I am one of them. Also, the rumors that have been circulating for years get the details all wrong. Nothing happened quite the way people imagine it did. Yet the common thread in all the gossip is nothing more than the simple truth: Behind the Storm fortune lies a crime, and without that crime, the fortune would not exist.

My name is Karl Larsen. Five years ago, my father died and left me the family business, Larsen Fruit & Tobacco, in a small town in northern Norway. I was nearly broke after holding a series of sales jobs across the country that all went bad; and while inheriting a convenience store north of the Arctic Circle was not the big break I'd been waiting for, it would do for a time. Besides, I had more or less grown up in that tiny store right across the street from the bank, and I thought I knew the business.

And so I did. I can run a store as well as the next guy. What I had not expected were the pitiful returns. I had planned to hire a clerk so that I could hang out with the old gang, dropping by the store a few times a day to administrate. Instead, I was stuck behind the counter from nine a.m. to nine p.m.—and even then, I just got by.

They were long hours. After five o'clock, when the other stores closed, the street lay almost deserted. It was barely worth it to stay open, but I had to squeeze every krone out of the business to survive. So I spent a lot of time staring out the front window at the other shopkeepers who walked by with the day's cash balance, to put it in the night safe next to the bank entrance.

Every day they came, Rasmussen from the glassware store, Hoff from the bijouterie, Lillegaard the baker, Oiesvold the jeweler, and many others I didn't know. They unlocked the steel drawer and pulled it out, dropped the light brown cash envelope into the drawer, and pushed the drawer back into the wall. Then they twisted the key again, and pulled out the drawer a second time to check that the envelope had really fallen into the safe, which, of course, it invariably had. Then they went home for dinner, while I had to stand behind the counter for hours yet, before I could cross the street myself and drop my ludicrously thin envelope on top of the invisible pile.

This was how I noticed Storm.

I didn't know his name at first, or who he was or where he came from; only that he came walking up the street every day around six, heading for the bank and the night safe. He was in his thirties, unusually tall, and he always walked with his upper body bent forward, as if he were pushing his way against an Arctic gale blowing down Main Street, which, of course, was often true. His glance fixed on the sidewalk in front of him, he was fully absorbed by his own thoughts. Don't interrupt me, he seemed to communicate; I've already got too much on my mind. Maybe he had even been heard to mutter it. He could have been a genius, or the local idiot; it was hard to tell.

I saw him every day as he walked up to the night safe and sent his usually bulging cash envelope through the deposit drawer. The drawer is of solid steel. Its hinged bottom falls away when it is shut, and the money slides down a chute into the safe. The design is simple but reliable, and the habit everyone has of pulling out the drawer a second time to reconfirm the laws of physics is quite paranoid. Yet there is something about the safety of cash that has to be seen to be believed—and so everyone always checks, myself included.

The only exception was the tall man. I watched him with interest, then with fascination, then obsessively. His routine never varied: As the steel drawer clicked shut, he was already striding on, leaving the bank and the night safe without pulling out the drawer again to check!

This, I knew with greater and greater certainty as the weeks went by, this was my big break. It was a present dropped in my lap by the gods of fortune. There was no way I could return it unopened.

I made some inquiries and learned that the tall man's name was Ragnvald Storm and that he was the manager of the local brewery outlet store—a responsible position that some people thought was unsuitable for a man with the reputation of a half-wit. At that time, the local brewery still had a beer monopoly in our town, and alcohol could not be bought on credit. Huge sums of cash were left in the outlet store every day.

Using the most artful of maneuvers to hide my motions, I managed to take the measurements of the inside of the steel drawer (10x15x20 cm). I cut out a thin steel plate with the right measurements, and to the middle of it I welded a ring the size of a thumb. I also bought, through the mail from Denmark, four square magnets.

I chose the date with care: June 23—Midsummer's Eve. A day when half the population would be getting drunk and dancing around the bonfires. A blowout day for a beer retailer.

Six o'clock seemed late in coming that day. The street outside was empty except for the usual procession of night-safe customers. Rasmussen, Hoff, Johnson—I could predict the order by now. Soon there would be ten minutes of nobody, and then Storm. I resisted the temptation to wait in the doorway. The street was bathed in sunshine—in fact, the sun would not set at all tonight—and I would have no cover of darkness at any time. To keep my “street time” to a minimum, I stood behind the counter and watched at an angle through the front window.

I noticed Storm as he passed by the trendy clothing store (which I would soon be able to patronize), and I peeked out the door to make sure no others were around. Then I pulled on my imitation sheepskin overcoat, and I crossed the street without bothering to lock the door behind me. The loose overcoat hid my movements as I stood in front of the night safe. I unlocked and pulled out the drawer, got the magnets from my coat pocket, and placed them on the four inside walls, right above the hinged bottom. I had put the steel plate in a sling inside my coat; now I used a fishhook in the metal ring to lower the plate carefully down on the magnets. I pushed the drawer into the wall, unlocked it, and pulled it out for the second time, then pushed it back in again. I was just removing the key as Storm came up to the safe.

I nodded and smiled, as if we night-safe customers were united in a special brotherhood. A second later, I almost whistled when I saw that Storm was carrying two cash envelopes, each filled to the point of bursting. Storm paid no attention to me, and did not even meet my eyes. I could have danced a jig on the bank stairs without him noticing. I was satisfied he would never recognize me.

I could hear the drawer open and shut behind me as I crossed to the store. For a second I held my breath. What if he suddenly decided to check, especially since he had just deposited enough cash to jam the drawer? But then I heard determined steps against the pavement, and I knew he was walking away.

I gave Storm two minutes to disappear before I crossed the street again and opened the drawer. The two bulging envelopes lay right there. I stuffed them down the front of my pants. I lifted the false bottom and placed it back in the sling. I picked loose the magnets. I closed the drawer.

Back in my store, I locked the door behind me. For weeks, I had been closing shop early, and handing in the cash balance at the counter the next day. Now I could go straight home, and nobody would find my absence suspicious.

That night I counted the money: 501,355 kroner. It was more than expected. I could start living now, with nothing standing between me and any goal I might decide on. I put all the cash in an empty marmalade jar. I burned the envelopes and the checks. Then I went to the churchyard and buried the jar next to my father's grave, on the plot reserved for me. No one else would dig there so long as I remained alive. I went home and slept till noon the next day.

Nothing about the case ever appeared in the papers, and no charges were filed. But the rumors started immediately. Policemen of varying ranks were asking questions in which the name Storm was mentioned—the very same Storm who had been suspended from his managerial position at the brewery outlet. This rumor was true; the police came around to my store also and grilled me for an hour. Of course, I gave away nothing.

Soon the rumors took on a more definite shape: With typical absentmindedness, Storm had mislaid the Midsummer's Eve cash balance of half a million kroner. The whole thing was just a stupid mistake. Storm himself reportedly acknowledged that he had probably mislaid the money. But proving anything one way or another was a different matter; and in the end, neither the brewery, nor the bank, nor the police really believed that Storm had acted with criminal intent. And so the case was dropped; and Storm was fired.

After the rumors died down, I heard nothing about Storm for about a year. Then there was an article in a newspaper about some odd new invention he had made involving beer and seaweed, with a picture of a run-down old factory building he had rented to start production. Nobody seemed to know what to make of it. But gradually, as articles kept appearing about Storm's hiring more people, signing international contracts, and building new buildings, something strange happened. The rumors returned, but in a different form. Far from being absentminded, Storm was now a diabolically calculating thief. He had founded his company with money stolen from his last employer. Half a million he had stolen—the very same amount he claimed to have borrowed from his mysterious great-aunt. These rumors persist to this day.

As for me, I left the money in the ground for a year. I dug it up only when my bank overdraft was stretched to the limit. I had cut back opening hours to between noon and six o'clock, and hired a part-time clerk—and life as a shopkeeper was already a lot easier. I now had time to look around for the big chance. But I was out of luck. I bought a partnership in a firm of wine importers, but it turned out to be a scam, and the loss made me a little gun-shy. I drank a lot and more or less stopped looking.

In retrospect, I think it's amazing that I kept on going for almost half a decade. But this week it all came to an end. The bank refused to extend my overdraft, and I was declared bankrupt. The notice appeared in today's newspaper.

This evening I was in the back room of the store for one last time. I was supposed to prepare for the closing-out sale, before handing in my last set of keys to the trustee in the morning. As I was trashing some rotten vegetables, I heard the entrance door open and close, and then footsteps on the floor of the store front. For a second I froze and held my breath. Who the hell could it be? The door had been locked, I was sure of that.

Deciding that the calm, measured footsteps were not those of a burglar, I stepped into the store front—and stood face-to-face with Ragnvald Storm.

Or maybe “face-to-face” is not quite accurate. The tall man loomed over me, his expression neither unfriendly nor benevolent, but one of curiosity. He was immaculately and fashionably dressed.

“You,” I whispered. “Herr Storm!”

“Good evening.”

I was filled with a sense that words of great import were about to be spoken, and I felt a creeping fear. Trying to keep my words trivial, I said: “I don't believe we've met.”

“Well, maybe just briefly.”

“But what are you ... How can I help you?”

“You mean, what the hell am I doing here? It's simple. The bank owns this store, and I, as of last year, own the bank.”

“Of course. I forgot.”

“What were you doing?”

“Trashing perishable goods.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, his voice taking on a note of irony, “those perishable goods.”

Following the aim of his glance, I saw three Havana cigars sticking out of my trouser pocket, just where I had put them fifteen minutes earlier. I could feel my face and neck redden. I was too flustered to think of anything clever to say, but Storm decided to come to my rescue. “Keep them,” he said. “They are proof that Marx was right when he said that history always repeats itself—first as tragedy and then as farce.”

“Repeats itself?” But I knew what he meant, and he knew that I knew. He didn't even bother to explain. He turned and looked through the window at the bank and night safe across the street. Again my glance followed his. “Are you guessing,” I whispered, “or can you prove it?”

“Oh, I can prove it to a moral certainty, but maybe not to a jury. You were always a suspect to the police, mostly because of your opportunity to observe the safe and its customers from right here inside the store. You see, if I didn't steal or lose the money, it must have been someone who knew my habits.” He turned to look directly at me. “But I only knew for sure that it was you when you asked the bank to extend your overdraft last month. You might remember the jovial Herr Gundersen who went through your books. He is really a forensic accountant, and he discovered the magical infusions of cash that have kept your business afloat for the last few years.”

“Are you going to report me?”

“To whom? The brewery? I own the brewery.”

“To the police?”

“I own them too.”

“Then they'll do what you tell them.”

“Right, and that's why I can't tell them to arrest you. People will say you're the fall guy, that I'm trying to clear my name at your expense. You know how the gossip mill works. Why weren't you arrested four years ago? Why only when I've become rich and powerful? What's the evidence? We know how we think Storm did it, but how could Larsen have pulled it off?”

“Yes, they would probably say that.” I was beginning to feel better.

Storm was about to say something, then stopped himself. Strangely enough, he seemed embarrassed. When he spoke, the words came slowly. “There is another reason I will make no demands of the police in this matter. Not that I have to explain myself to you; yet it feels somehow fitting that you should know.” He cleared his throat. “The fact is, getting fired was the best thing that ever happened to me. At that time, I had already done all the important experiments and developed the business concept of Stormweed. But I didn't dare take the final step—or, really, the first step—and quit my job. Getting fired gave me less to lose. If you hadn't stolen the money, I might still be the outlet store manager—dreaming every day about all the wonderful things I could have built if only I had had the courage.”

“So I ... I did you a favor?”

“The greatest one possible.”

Storm stepped to the door. “We won't shake hands,” he said. “But I'll give you a last piece of advice. You can follow it or not, I don't care. You almost certainly won't.” He was looking me straight in the eyes. “I don't like you. But today you've reached the bottom, just as I did four years ago. You'll do well to take as much advantage as I did of that opportunity.”

Three seconds later he was gone, and I started laughing, in relief, maniacally, uncontrollably. I, Karl Larsen, was not a thief but an instrument of fate. Through means that were as incalculable as a spin of the roulette wheel, the bouncing ball of my criminal masterstroke had changed the track of a man's life, to the immeasurable benefit of himself and of society. If this could happen, anything could happen. Storm had been right and his advice good: Never give up trusting Lady Luck.

When I stopped laughing, I went back into the storage room, sat down in my leather armchair, and lighted a Romeo y Julieta. Now, as morning approaches, I sit here still, shrouded in swirls and coils of cigar smoke, and I dream of endless possibilities.

Copyright © 2012 Tore Boeckmann; translation Copyright © 2012 Tore Boeckmann

[Back to Table of Contents]

Fiction: MURDER UNCORDIAL
by Amy Myers

Auguste Didier is British author Amy Myers's first series character and the star of many of her novels. In recent years, however, the Victorian chef has continued his adventures exclusively in short stories. Here he is in a case involving the politics of his day. The author's most recent novel features antique car detective Jack Colby. See Classic Calls the Shots (Severn House; June 2012).

There was something seriously wrong. One did not serve oyster forcemeat with a delicate guinea fowl. Auguste Didier despaired of the modern standards of cuisine. Worse, Tranton Towers, the stately Kentish residence of Lord and Lady Bromfield, seemed to be a most mysterious mansion. Instead of concentrating on the delights of a menu prepared by Master Chef Auguste Didier, His Lordship's household seemed far more interested in politics.

It was a small comfort that the dinner, for which Auguste's services as chef had been specially arranged, was in honour of the President of the French Republic, during his return journey to Paris. The reason for his visit to England had been to seal the knot of friendship between the two countries with the Entente Cordiale, and so the menu for the evening demanded the best of Auguste Didier's art. But that, he fumed, would not be possible with the assistant chef with whom he had been provided. Oyster forcemeat? Non, non, non.

“Why not?” assistant chef Francoise Dagarre had asked demurely.

Usually Auguste was only too happy to work with women in his kitchens, especially attractive ones like Mademoiselle Dagarre. After all, this was 1903. Nevertheless, he drew the line at those who pretended to be chefs and were not. She was a good cook, yes, but a chef? No. He had even considered the possibility that she was a secret agent, a spy, as the reason for today's banquet was that the German ambassador would also be present. It was generally known that the Kaiser viewed the Entente Cordiale between France and England with deep suspicion, and the Foreign Office had suggested this gesture to show that Germany had nothing to fear from this new rapport between its two rivals. All three nations were, and would be, the best of friends.

Auguste tried to convince himself that with the ambassador's presence, the French would not require a spy in Tranton Towers, as the President would not only have his entourage with him, but would be accompanied by Scotland Yard detectives throughout his visit. Nevertheless all sorts of fearful visions filled Auguste's head, from assassination to his delicate Swan of Savoy E0 la Chantilly being smashed by an intruder in his kitchen bent on ruining this important occasion.

It was not too late to prevent catastrophe, as Monsieur le President and the other guests would not be arriving until five o'clock this afternoon. He must take his concerns to Lord Bromfield immediately.

* * * *

“A spy?” Lord Bromfield roared. “By heaven, Didier, this is England, man. We don't hold with spies here. Not gentlemanly.”

“But Mademoiselle Dagarre is not what she seems, sir.”

“Nonsense. What would she be spying on, might I ask?”

“I don't know, sir.” It seemed obvious to Auguste, but Lord Bromfield was the politician, not him.

“Well, I do know. Nothing. Stick to your trade and cook.” Then he added a conciliatory note. “Look here, Didier, you're a good fellow, but you're French.”

“Half French, sir.”

This was waved aside. “You don't understand the way we do things here. This is a private dinner, so as a matter of honour politics are left at the dining room door.”

Not in Auguste's experience, but he maintained a diplomatic silence.

“Good Lord, what's that?” The monocle dropped from Lord Bromfield's eye in his astonishment. He had been standing by the window and something was clearly amiss in the forecourt below. Auguste hurried to join him.

Drawn up in front of the pillars of the grand entrance to Tranton Towers he could see a horse-drawn charabanc, towards which the butler, Mr. Jennings, was hurrying as fast as his dignity permitted. One of His Lordship's grooms was bemusedly holding the reins, and out of the charabanc spilled surely the strangest array of people ever to grace the portico of Tranton Towers.

Auguste's fascinated eyes fell on a thin man busily donning a one-man-band harness, jangling cymbals, trumpets, a drum, and sundry other instruments; a well-rounded gentleman in a large checked suit and battered top hat; a dapper man with moustache and melancholy expression, clad in dinner suit and huge bow tie; a large solid man of many muscles; a lady of middle years and girth who seemed to be covered in purple feathers waving from her costume and hat; and a young—no, not so young—lady clad in a tight-bustled white dress with pink frills and sporting a large and very flowery hat. She was grasping the leads of three small yapping dogs. Behind her streamed several others, including a lady in male attire. In all, Auguste counted twelve unexpected visitors.

Whoever they were, they were not the President of the French Republic.

* * * *

“Look here, Your Lordship.” Mr. Check Suit was obviously the leader, Auguste noted, and was only too happy to explain their presence. “Charlie's my name. The Great Charlie, I am, and what we're all here for is what you promised.” He gave a hearty chuckle as he waved a letter in front of his surprised Lordship's eyes.

Mr. Jennings, having been forced to summon higher authority to deal with the calamity, stood by ashen-faced at this challenge to his ability to deal with any domestic emergency. Since no one seemed to object to his presence, Auguste edged closer to Lord Bromfield, whose face had assumed a bright shade of red.

“That's my writing paper,” he roared.

“'Course it is.” The Great Charlie sounded surprised. “So here we are, straight from the Wapping Palace of Varieties. Daisy, dear, introduce yourself.”

“Pleased to meet you, Your Lordship,” trilled the lady in the tight frilly dress. “Sweethearts,” addressing the dogs, “bow to His Lordship.” Her charges reluctantly stood on their hind legs, wobbled, and dropped down again.

“And this,” Charlie said proudly, “is the Wapping Blackbird, Miss Emmeline Foster.” This was the large lady with the feathers—an apt stage name, Auguste thought, as the Blackbird kissed His Lordship's hand, much to his horror.

The one-man-band, Joachim Schmitt, made no attempt to follow suit, being laden with jangling musical instruments, but managed a toot on the trumpet to acknowledge Charlie's introduction. The dapper gentleman was introduced as “our own, our very own Caruso, Soulful Songster Stefan Meyer.” Joe Jones, the strongman, looked all too eager to crush His Lordship's hand but Lord Bromfield hastily backed away. The rest of the group took their turn, as His Lordship struggled to give vent to his feelings.

At last he found his voice: “What the blazes are you doing here?”

Charlie looked puzzled. “Come to take a tour of the house, dine with you, and perform for a few guests. That's what you asked in your letter, sir.” He waved it again, and this time Lord Bromfield snatched it.

One glance and he'd seen enough. “Not my writing. Looks like it, but it's a forgery. My apologies, Mr. Charlie, but you've been grossly deceived and so have I. Mr Jennings—” the butler approached him almost in tears—"kindly arrange for these good people to be recompensed and see them off the property.”

The faces of the good people promptly changed from cheerfulness to dismay, and rebellion looked likely to break out as they murmured angrily amongst themselves.

“Can't do that, Your Lordship,” the Great Charlie said firmly. “A contract's a contract, and who's to say whether it's your writing or not? What's more, it's against the professional code of Wapping Palace of Varieties not to perform when contracted so to do.”

“And what about our grub?” Joe, the strongman, demanded.

“Looking forward to our little tour, I was,” Daisy wailed tearfully, thus making the dogs yelp again and the Wapping Blackbird move forward to the attack.

“I was to sing,” she informed Lord Bromfield with heaving bosom. “Are you telling me that the Voice of the Wapping Blackbird is not good enough for your guests?”

Soulful Songster Stefan hurried to support her. "Meine Liebling has the voice of an angel.”

He was swept aside by the Wapping Blackbird's dismissive hand, which indicated she could fight her own battles.

His Lordship, Auguste thought, highly amused, looked as though speedy retreat would be his preferred tactic in the fight, but he managed to stand his ground.

“Kindly leave,” Lord Bromfield almost squeaked in response, but in vain. The mutiny was growing in strength. It was time for his own version of diplomacy, Auguste decided.

“Your Lordship, suppose we served an early luncheon on the south lawn for these artistes, followed by a short conducted tour of the house? Your guests do not arrive until five, and if the charabanc leaves by two o'clock, no one need be incommoded.”

“Yes, yes.” Lord Bromfield clutched at this compromise. “You'll make a politician yet, Didier.”

The Great Charlie still looked doubtful. “What about our show? We got a contract.”

Lord Bromfield took a firm stand. ‘So have I, and mine's with Scotland Yard. Personally, I would, of course, have greatly enjoyed your performance, but I have already given the Yard a list of those who will be attending today, and due to this misunderstanding, it does not include you. Another time, perhaps.”

There followed a brief consultation between Charlie and his colleagues. “We get our dosh and our tour, then?” he finally asked His Lordship. “And grub?”

“Jellied eels,” Daisy eagerly demanded.

“Victoria sponge,” requested the Wapping Blackbird.

“Kugelhopf,” the Soulful Songster pleaded.

“And booze,” Joe added firmly.

“Plenty of everything,” His Lordship assured them.

* * * *

At last the magic hour of two o'clock arrived. It had taken its time doing so, Auguste thought, breathing a sigh of relief as he watched the well-fed and well-oiled uninvited guests lurching their way out of the servants’ wing towards the charabanc. Fortunately, Mademoiselle Dagarre had not only superintended their luncheon and drinking requirements (only the kugelhopf proved a problem), she had offered to help Mr. Jennings escort the group round the house, an arrangement with which Auguste had eagerly concurred. Not only had he been able to continue with the delightful preparations for the banquet ahead, he had been relieved of the anxiety of superintending his assistant chef's every move in the kitchen—particularly any threat of her moving towards his guinea fowl or Chantilly Swan.

The tour had duly taken place, ending with a second visit to the servants’ hall to reclaim any property left there and also—in Mademoiselle Dagarre's discreet words—to prepare for the journey home. A wise precaution, Auguste thought, in view of the copious amount of drink consumed.

Auguste decided to follow the eventual exodus, if only to support Mr. Jennings, who was still glassy-eyed with shock. Just as it was rejoining the charabanc, however, the party decided to stop to express its thanks.

“Let's have a song for His Lordship,” shouted a bleary-eyed Great Charlie.

His Lordship had not appeared, but they sang it all the same, perhaps under the illusion that Mr. Jennings had been elevated to a position of rank. “Goodbye, Dolly Gray” was their choice, and an enthusiastic rendering took place. They were still singing it as they climbed onto the charabanc, and with Charlie taking the reins, the horses were turned and made their merry way down the drive.

But surely there was something wrong...

Belated realisation sent Auguste running after the charabanc yelling, “Stop!” No one heard him, or if they did, no one took any notice. Mr Jennings was pulling him back, shouting, “Are you mad?” and between that and “Dolly Gray” Auguste's pleas went in vain. “Dolly Gray” grew fainter and fainter.

Auguste groaned, to Mr. Jennings’ annoyance. “What is wrong with you, Mr. Didier? His Lordship instructed that they all depart by two o'clock. It is now five minutes past.”

“Everything is wrong,” Auguste replied. “They did not all depart.”

“Are you inebriated, Didier? We saw them go.”

“Twelve arrived, but only eleven left.”

* * * *

Lord Bromfield was instantly summoned, but a ten-minute search of the house failed to find Joachim Schmitt, for which His Lordship appeared much relieved. “Obviously,” he announced, “the fellow has decided to walk into the village and get the train back. What was his name?”

“Schmitt, sir,” Auguste replied. The one-man-band harness and instruments had been found in the servants’ hall, where they had been left before the tour began, and to him this discovery would seem to rule out His Lordship's theory. Auguste's visions of calamity came back with a rush.

“German, eh?” Lord Bromfield looked momentarily taken aback.

“It is not uncommon in music halls,” Auguste tried to reassure him.

“That is so, Your Lordship. The Soulful Songster fellow is also German.” Mr. Jennings too was anxious to calm his master.

Lord Bromfield seemed slightly cheered. “Mere coincidence that there are two of them, then. Anyway, this Schmitt isn't in the house now and the other fellow's left, so that's that. Besides, the German ambassador's dining here himself, so he can report to the Kaiser on what's going on. That puts paid to any of your damned spy nonsense, Didier.”

Auguste nerved himself. “The French too might have their spies. There is—”

“You're out of your mind, Didier. The French don't have spies any more than we do,” Lord Bromfield interrupted crossly. “Like us, they're gentlemen.” He thought about this. “Almost.”

Should he mention the possibility of assassination? Auguste wondered frantically. As the German ambassador was hardly likely to leap up in the midst of a Didier-inspired menu to kill the President personally, a hired killer would be required, and thus Herr Schmitt should be tracked down without delay. But with His Lordship's present attitude, he could say nothing. In any case, his attention had been caught by what he could see outside the morning-room window.

“Good thing Scotland Yard's accompanying the President, eh?” Lord Bromfield added a forced laugh.

Auguste cleared his throat. “It is indeed, sir. However, it appears to have arrived here already.”

The charabanc was once again coming to a halt outside the Towers, with eleven noisy occupants, some crying, some angry, some shouting. Auguste was more interested in the carriage following it, however. Two men were stepping out of it, one of whom was very familiar. It was Detective Chief Inspector Egbert Rose. Lord Bromfield hurried outside to greet the other man, and Auguste promptly followed him.

Egbert's face registered a mixture of pleasure and wariness when he saw Auguste. “Trouble,” he said gloomily. “Wherever you are, I find trouble. What is it this time?”

“A missing man.”

“Not this Schmitty that this lot are on about? Got left behind, did he?”

“I hope that is all, but he hasn't yet been found, and his one-man-band instruments are still here.”

Rose frowned. “Good thing I came down early. Monsieur Lapelle here is one of the President's private secretaries. He's convinced someone is out to slaughter the President, and he wants to go through the house with a tooth comb before the main party arrives. First thing we found was this charabanc blocking the gateway as they argued over whether to come back or not. Back, I told them. No one leaves this house without my permission, I said, or my governor will have my guts for garters. Now you're telling me you can't find this German bloke. Got drunk and lay down for a snooze somewhere?” he asked hopefully.

“I think not. It's at least possible that he planned to stay behind and has hidden himself all too well. A thorough search is needed, and, Egbert, there is something else.” Auguste passed on his doubts about his assistant chef in a discreet whisper.

To his annoyance, Egbert chortled. “Probably planning to jump out of a cake in pink tights and do the dastardly deed herself.”

“Perhaps she is,” Auguste replied with dignity, with a nightmare vision of his Swan of Savoy being so desecrated.

“You're right,” Egbert said hastily. “We'll get this search going. Can you look after this mob for me?”

Auguste faced the prospect with sinking heart. “We can entertain them in the servants’ hall.”

This was easier said than done, as Daisy and Emmeline had to be restrained from rushing into Tranton Towers immediately to conduct their own searches for the missing Schmitty. Lured by the promise of tea and cakes, however, they meekly followed Auguste back into the servants’ hall.

“Poor Schmitty,” wailed Daisy, dabbing at her eyes with a delicate handkerchief with one hand and restraining her dogs with the other, “what's happened to my poor darling?”

“That's not what you were calling him last night,” the Wapping Blackbird snapped. “Not when you found out he has a wife and children back in Germany.”

“Nor you.” Joe rounded on her in Daisy's defence. “You didn't like it, Emmeline. Fancied your own chances, did you? Some hopes.”

Blackbird Emmeline went very pale, and decided to side with Daisy, throwing a comforting arm round her. “We were both betrayed,” she said mournfully. “I too was betrothed to him before I found out The Truth.”

Schmitty seemed a busy man, Auguste thought, juggling not only his one-man-band instruments but sweethearts too.

Soulful Songster Stefan took advantage of the situation to do his own comforting, slipping a manly arm round the Blackbird's purple-feathered dress. "Meine Liebling, do not fear. I am here to protect you.”

The Wapping Blackbird did not seem to appreciate this offer. “Joachim will explain all when he returns. This story about a wife was surely a misunderstanding. And you,” she whirled round on Auguste, “where are those cakes we were promised? And tea.”

“And kugelhopf,” the Soulful Songster added hopefully.

The latter at least would still not be forthcoming. Auguste had never been able to see the attraction of this concoction, which to him was merely a doughy brioche with raisins and almonds added to make it edible. He ignored the request. “The police will require a photograph of Mr. Schmitt. Does anyone have one?”

“Of course,” the Blackbird declared grandly. “Next to my heart.” Under everyone's fascinated gaze she drew on a silver chain, a locket jerked itself up from her bosom, and she handed the photograph inside it to Auguste. It was unpleasantly warm.

* * * *

“That's no Joe Schmitt,” Egbert Rose snorted, taking one look at the photograph. He had been conferring in the morning room with Lord Bromfield and Monsieur Lapelle, who, owing to the tension of the situation, did not seem to think it unusual that a temporary chef should apparently be working for Scotland Yard.

“This Schmitt might be a one-man-band,” Egbert continued, “but his trade is killing. His real name is Carl Halbach, and he does the dirty work for the Camarilla. Heard of them?”

Monsieur Lapelle had, and he looked grave. “That is the name given to the group of parasites that surround the Kaiser,” he explained. “They dream up ways to please their master, and assassinating the President of France could well be one of them. Mon dieu, and he will soon be here.”

His Lordship paled. “You know all about this fellow, Rose. Find him.”

“We will,” Egbert assured him, with more confidence than Auguste had. “It seems clear enough that the Camarilla arranged for a sight of the German ambassador's invitation to forge one for the Wapping Palace of Varieties—including Halbach. I only know about this Halbach through the bureau noir, Your Lordship. The French spy service. They sent me a photograph of him a month or two ago.”

Auguste drew great satisfaction from the sight of Lord Bromfield's face as he took in this confirmation that the French did not play by gentlemanly rules.

“We must find Halbach before the President arrives,” Lapelle lamented. “If we cannot, I must stop the President from leaving the train at Bexley.”

Auguste was aghast. Cancel the dinner? After all his work on the Chantilly Swan? It could not be allowed to happen.

* * * *

Mr. Jennings seemed to have abandoned all hope of a life that did not feature the Wapping Palace of Varieties, as an intensive search was ordered and he and Mademoiselle Dagarre reconstructed their tour round the house, closely followed by Egbert Rose, Pierre Lapelle, and Auguste Didier. The tour for the Wapping group had been a brief one, Auguste realised, the bare minimum to satisfy it. Only the library, the dining room, and the famous long gallery had been included. When Egbert questioned the charabanc party in the servants’ hall there had been no consensus as to where Schmitty, as they continued to call him, had last been seen. The Great Charlie remembered seeing him last in the library, the Soulful Songster spoke to him in the dining room, and the Wapping Blackbird claimed to have seen him in the long gallery examining the fireplace.

Auguste hoped that her testimony was the reliable one, as the gallery had been the final stage before the Wapping group returned to the servants’ wing. The library offered no possibilities for secreting Herr Schmitt and nor did the dining room, but the corridors in between the destinations had opportunities aplenty for anyone trying to slip away unseen.

Even Egbert Rose was daunted by the time the small party reached the long gallery, and Auguste began to despair. Was there room in the chimney for a man to hide? Investigation proved not. Nor was there a closet with enough space for Schmitty to conceal himself in even temporarily. The Blackbird had either been mistaken or lying.

Then his eye fell on a large aspidistra adorning a low table which was covered with a red plush cloth. Surely it was too low even for an occasional table.... He looked at the aspidistra again—a plant he had always hated—lifted it off, and picked up a corner of the cloth, conscious that his heart was beating loudly. It proved to be no table that lay beneath, but an antique wooden chest.

Hearing his cry of triumph, Egbert was quickly at his side. “Get ready, Auguste. He'll fight, and is probably armed.” He stood guard, as Auguste took the corner of the lid. “Now!"

The chest was empty.

* * * *

“Search the whole house, every corner, every cranny, every damned mouse hole,” roared Lord Bromfield. Monsieur Lapelle was quick to follow him, beckoning Egbert Rose to come with him, which left Auguste and Mademoiselle Dagarre alone.

The answer to the problem of the disappearing one-man-band was tantalisingly close. Auguste was sure of it. But where to start with so little time left? He decided to speak out directly to his new assistant, as they hurried back to the servants’ domain in the basement.

“You know nothing of this man Halbach, mademoiselle?”

Francoise looked so innocent that he could almost believe her to be so. “But I am a mere cook. An assistant chef.”

Auguste's eyes gleamed. So she wanted to play games—and at such a time. “And yet you made oyster forcemeat. A risky choice for adopting the role of an assistant chef.”

“Merely a slight mistake,” she purred, “which only a master chef such as yourself would recognise.” She paused. “If a mere assistant chef may make another suggestion, it is wise to study the ingredients of every recipe for life—and, monsieur, for death also.”

No game, now. “What ingredients would you recommend I study immediately?” he asked gravely.

“If I knew, I would tell you, but I do not. My task is to return to my work, which is to ensure that no impure ingredients are lurking there.”

Recipe for death? The master guiding plan for assassination? His mind began to work, as with a whisk of her skirts, she left him standing in the servants’ corridor. Not for him the delights of the kitchen yet. Those impure ingredients—had she been speaking metaphorically, or of the food to be served to the President? The latter possibility was too terrible to contemplate, and first he must deal with the ingredients of the missing Carl Halbach problem.

Question: Why did Halbach leave the one-man-band instruments in the servants’ hall if he intended to disappear? A glaring mistake for a would-be assassin. Every ingredient is included in a recipe for a reason. What was the reason here? Answer: To make his pursuers believe that he was hidden in the main house, whereas ... Auguste's eyes wandered round his many-roomed temporary basement domain.

Question: Why would Halbach want to hide in the servants’ quarters, when in the main house he would be much closer to the President? Answer: There was something here that he needed.

Question: How did he plan to get close enough to the President to kill him? Answer: By appearing to be a servant ... a footman, who would have the best opportunity to be close to the President.

The last two ingredients melted into one another like a roux of butter and flour. Answer to the roux: Halbach needed a spare livery.

Summoning up his courage, Auguste walked towards the room where the footmen changed into their livery, and where there were usually spare sets. He held his breath as he gently pushed open the door, but there was no one to be seen and no closet large enough to hold a man. Then his eye fell on a chest underneath the window. This time he was more cautious. Even if the chest did contain his quarry, he must remember that he was likely to be armed, and there was no Egbert Rose here now. But there was also no time to waste if his Swan was to be appreciated this evening.

He flung open the lid. Inside lay Carl Halbach's body. There was a gun beside him, and he had been strangled.

The would-be assassin had become a victim.

* * * *

It was three-thirty. The body of the unfortunate Halbach had left Tranton Towers, Lord Bromfield, Pierre Lapelle, and Egbert Rose were in conference, and Auguste Didier was pacing between his twin responsibilities not knowing which offered the least comfort—the sight of a kitchen where the Chantilly Swan only required the last-minute addition of spun sugar to attain its full glory for a President who might never see it, or the sight of the Wapping artistes in tears, tempers, and shock. He manfully chose the latter responsibility.

“I just cannot believe it, I really cannot,” exclaimed the Wapping Blackbird. “That dreadful man was only a nasty spy who might have killed us all in our beds.”

“I always said there was something odd about him,” Daisy sniffed, at last in accord with Emmeline.

Joe looked puzzled. “But someone killed Schmitty, he didn't kill no one.”

“He meant to,” the Soulful Songster said. “He meant to kill the President.”

“And to think I hired him for the Palace,” the Great Charlie mourned.

“A disgrace to his Fatherland,” declared the Songster.

“But who killed him?” Joe persisted.

Auguste retreated. He would see if Egbert Rose could be found. There was little doubt that the assassin would have been Halbach, but even if the slightest possibility of danger remained it was his duty to help Egbert in his task. He found him alone in the morning room.

“I had my eye on the other German chap as Halbach's murderer,” Egbert grunted, “but that doesn't add up. If he was an accomplice, he wouldn't go and kill Halbach instead of the President, would he?”

“Among the Wapping visitors there are several with personal reasons for wishing this man removed,” Auguste said. “Have you considered them? Two ladies, both falsely believing themselves betrothed to the so-called Joachim Schmitt, discovered last night that he was already married, and two gentlemen, the strongman and Stefan Meyer, were extremely jealous of him.”

“Doesn't seem like a woman's job to me. Of course, it's possible, if it was done from behind with a garrotte of some kind. But I prefer the sound of these two gents, especially Meyer, who could have been Halbach's accomplice and also had personal reasons for wanting him out of the way.”

“But Meyer would surely wait until after Halbach had killed the President if he was his accomplice. Why kill him before that, and make the job more difficult for himself?”

Another grunt. “Very well. Back to his personal motive—flimsy though it is. It would have been easy enough for any of that Wapping lot, perhaps the Great Charlie himself, to follow Halbach on the spur of the moment. Tell you what, Auguste, that's what I don't like about that theory. Too spur of the moment.”

“What's wrong with that?”

“Too straightforward for a case you're mixed up in.”

Auguste let this slur pass with dignity. “So I take it that you think my assistant chef might still be planning to jump out of a cake.”

“Ah,” said Rose. “Matter of fact, you were right about her. Lapelle told me she works for the bureau noir, and so indirectly for him. She was under strict orders not to draw attention to herself; her task was to watch in case someone poisoned the President's food.”

Auguste was aghast. So Mademoiselle Dagarre had not been speaking metaphorically. There had indeed been a risk to his exquisite food. The full horror of such an outrage terrified him. He had much to thank the attractive Mademoiselle Dagarre for. At any other time...

“I keep coming back to this other German chap,” Rose said. “Accomplice and jealous lover.”

“But they do not fit, mon ami," Auguste said patiently. “They are impure ingredients together—”

“Beg your pardon?”

Auguste thought hard. “The ingredient for murder that does not fit.”

“Hurry up, man,” Rose said urgently. “If you're going to have an idea, have it quickly. Time's fast running out. Halbach may be dead, but if there's still a killer running around, we need to know.”

“Kugelhopf!” cried Auguste in triumph. “Stefan Meyer is not German.”

Rose regarded him blankly, and Auguste hastened to explain. “Meyer's favourite food. But kugelhopf is an Alsatian dish, not German.”

“Alsace is in Germany,” Rose snapped.

“No, mon ami. Not to those who live there. They still belong in their hearts to France, and wait only for an opportunity to be free of the tyrant that has governed them since eighteen seventy. Meyer is an Alsatian name too. Furthermore, when speaking of Halbach Stefan Meyer spoke of his fatherland, not our—Halbach's fatherland is Germany, but not Meyer's.

“Then he wasn't Halbach's accomplice?”

“He pretended to be, but only to foil the plot to kill the man whom he regards as his President.”

A pause. “I'll give the good news to Lapelle.”

* * * *

Auguste walked back into the kitchens, eager to find his assistant chef. “I think, mademoiselle, you need have no fear now of impure ingredients. Our recipes will be presented to the President tonight; we will forget such matters as forcemeat, and,” he took her hand, “soon, perhaps, we may spin sugar together?”

Francoise blushed prettily. “I did my best,” she sighed with downcast eyes, failing to hide their twinkle and beauty, “but working with a master chef such as you, how can my best be enough? Monsieur ... Auguste ... to spin sugar, to float through the heavens with you...”

Auguste kissed her hand, and soon, he hoped, her lips. “How we shall enjoy our Entente Cordiale, Francoise.”

Copyright © 2012 Amy Myers

Publisher's Note: Dell Magazines invites you to take a peek into the publishing world. Join our four fiction titles at the Brooklyn Book Festival, NYC's largest free literary event, for author signings, giveaways, subscription deals, writers’ guidelines, and more.

* * * *

ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Vol. 140, No. 2 Whole No. 852, August 2012. ISSN 0013-6328, USPS 523-610. Dell GST# R123054108. Published monthly except for combined March/April and September/October double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. 1-year subscription $55.90 in U.S. and possessions, in all other countries $65.90 (GST included in Canada), payable in advance in U.S. funds. Subscription orders and mail regarding subscriptions should be sent to Ellery Queen, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855, or call 800-220-7443. Editorial Offices, 267 Broadway, 4th Fl. New York, NY 10007-2352. Executive Office, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855-1220. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. ©2012 Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. Protection secured under the Universal Copyright Convention and the Pan American Copyright convention. ELLERY QUEEN'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE(R) is the registered trademark of Ellery Queen. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, 6 Prowitt St., Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to: Quad/Graphics Joncas, 4380 Garand, Saint-Laurent, Quebec H4R 2A3. Printed by Quad/Graphics, Taunton, MA. U.S.A. 5/28/12

Visit www.dellmagazines.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.