Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

The Death of Ramona

by Stephanie Kay Bendel

Boulder, Colorado, freelance writer Stephanie Kay Bendel has taught fiction writing for more than two decades, specializing in the field of suspense. She is the author of Making Crime Pay: A Practical Guide to Mystery Writing. Her many previous short-story credits include tales for this magazine and for our sister publication, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. During the 1970s she wrote several novels, including A Scream Away, under the pseudonym Andrea Harris.

Molly Renquist looked up as her secretary, Lindsey, opened the office door and poked her pretty head in. “Got time to see a lady who doesn’t have an appointment?”

Molly frowned. “Do you know what it’s about?”

“She says she wants you to look into her sister’s death.”

Glancing at her calendar and then her watch, Molly nodded. “Send her in.”

A moment later, Lindsey returned, followed by a tall, beautiful young Latina with lustrous black hair that fell to her shoulders in a rippling cascade. She wore low-heeled pumps and a pale blue dress that failed to hide her voluptuous curves. Other than the small golden hoops in her ears, she wore no jewelry and very little makeup, yet her appearance was striking. Molly reflected that the woman seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place her. Reaching across the desk, she offered her hand and said, “Please have a seat.”

The woman sat on the edge of the comfortable leather chair that had stood in their family room before Tom’s death. Afterward, the sight of it in the house was too painful, but Molly couldn’t bring herself to part with it.

The young woman leaned forward, crossing her ankles, and said softly, in hesitant but grammatical English, “I am Rosa Maria Esmeralda Hernandez. My family has not much money, but I have brought as much as we have. Will you find out why my sister died?”

“What were you told?”

“That she killed herself. They say she was sad because she could not have a child, but that is something she’s known for many years.”

That struck Molly as odd. Had the sister suffered some gross abnormality from birth? Had there been an accident or serious disease? “Was there an autopsy?” she asked.

“Yes, but they will not let us see what they found. The judge has — how do you call it? — sealed the records.”

That piqued Molly’s interest. “And what was your sister’s name?”

“Ramona Wiley.” She looked up as though expecting Molly to recognize the name. “Ramona,” she repeated with emphasis.

Molly started. “The Ramona? The singer and actress?”

The young woman nodded, her wide dark eyes filled with sadness, and Molly realized why she’d seemed familiar. There was a strong resemblance to her famous late sister, who had been known by a single name. If Rosa were wearing an expensive gown, diamonds dangling from her ears and throat, and had enjoyed the services of a professional makeup artist and hairdresser, she could be Ramona’s double.

Ramona’s name had been in the news lately. About a month earlier, her body had been discovered in bed by the housekeeper one morning. As Molly recalled, the husband — who was also her manager and agent — had been out of town at the time, and the medical examiner, James Pearson, had ruled her death a suicide. Molly knew Pearson well. He was a man of unquestionable integrity, and she couldn’t imagine him being less than honest about the case.

Of course, the tabloids had had a field day presenting bizarre speculations, pointing out that her husband was sole heir to a mega-million dollar empire, but the police had quickly ruled him out as a suspect, and the medical examiner had taken the unusual step of holding a press conference to emphasize that the actress’s death had been self-inflicted.

“I wasn’t aware there was any doubt as to the cause of your sister’s death,” Molly said softly. “What exactly do you want me to investigate?”

A spark of anger came into Rosa’s eyes. “My sister would not kill herself. She was a devout Catholic, and she was happy since she came to America. I must know what really happened.” As Rosa became more emotional, her accent thickened.

Molly frowned. “I seem to remember the papers saying she’d been depressed lately.”

“She was upset about something. She called me two days before — before it happened. She was crying — said that she had learned something terrible. But she wouldn’t tell me what it was. She said it was better I didn’t know. I asked her if her marriage was in trouble. Hollywood, you know. Marriages don’t last long here — not like at home.”

Rosa paused to extract a white lace handkerchief from her purse and dabbed her eyes. “She said — and these are her words — ‘My marriage is over. There is no way to repair this.’”

“But she never said what the problem was?”

Miss Hernandez shook her head. “I thought maybe Tony was cheating on her, but she said Tony was not the cause of her troubles. Then she said a strange thing — that it concerned a monstruosidad, a monstrosity. She would not say more.”

“A monstrosity?” Molly asked. “That seems an odd word to use.”

“Not so odd,” Rosa said quietly. She swallowed hard. “There is something you need to know.” She drew a deep breath and looked down at her hands, which were now clasped tightly in her lap.

Molly sensed the girl was going through an inner struggle. What did she think was so terrible she couldn’t bring herself to talk about it? “It’s all right,” she said gently. “I used to be a police officer. I don’t think you can tell me anything I haven’t heard before.”

Rosa hesitated and cleared her throat. “Ramona and I come from a small village in Mexico. Our family is very large. We have fifteen brothers and sisters, many aunts and uncles, and even more cousins. Before Ramona came to Hollywood, we were very poor.”

She swallowed again — hard this time — and seemed to be struggling to force the next words out of her mouth. “Our family is cursed.”

Molly realized Rosa was waiting to see how her words would be taken, and she tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible. Finally the woman went on.

“It began long ago. Our great-grandmother stole her girlfriend’s man. Ever since then, our family has produced few boys — in Mexico, that means fewer people who can make money. Even worse, many of the girls never receive the sign — you know, the sign of womanhood.” The young woman seemed to shrink in her chair as she spoke. “The sign is very important in our culture. A girl is treated like a princess when it comes. But for some of us, it never arrives. We become like unpaid servants to the others. No man will marry us, for we cannot have children, and no one will care for us when we grow old. There are eleven girls in our family and five of us, including Ramona and myself, have been stricken.” She bowed her head and murmured, “Our mother always said she could tell which girls were cursed, even when we were very young.”

“How could she do that?”

“She told us we had lost a precious gift, so God gave us another. She said all of her cursed daughters were” — her lovely mouth twisted into a grimace — “beautiful. I always thought that was” — she hesitated, looking for the right word — “ironico — a badjoke. No man wants to marry us, so what good is it to be beautiful?”

“But Ramona married,” Molly pointed out.

“I believe that was more of a business deal.”

“What do you mean?”

“Almost eight years ago, Anthony Wiley came to our village — I’ve never been sure why. It was during the festival of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There was feasting and celebration, much dancing and singing in the evenings, and a most beautiful church service on the morning of the feast day — flowers and candles everywhere. Even as a child, Ramona had a lovely voice and she was asked to sing on such occasions, and so Tony Wiley heard her. He came to my parents and said that Ramona could make a lot of money if she would come with him to Hollywood. My father said that he would allow such a thing only if she were married.”

She paused and her voice softened. “He didn’t tell Tony about the curse. It was wrong of my father, of course, but you have to understand. He was facing having to support five unmarried daughters for the rest of his life, and Tony was talking about amounts of money we could not even dream of. Such money would make a great difference for our whole family. You can’t really blame my father. Besides, Ramona was sixteen and she wanted very much to leave our village and live in a city with bright lights. So arrangements were made, there was a ceremony at our little church, and Ramona left. Within a year, she was sending us money — enough for my parents to buy a bigger house and for the little ones to go to school. Everyone learned to speak English — Ramona said that was important. We got a telephone and she called us every week.”

“And she seemed happy?” Molly asked.

“Oh, very! She missed us, of course, but she told us about her beautiful clothes, and the wonderful house they had, and all the servants who waited on her. All she had to do was look glamorous and sing. She wanted me to come to America and live with them, but I told her I couldn’t sing, and no one was offering to marry me.”

Rosa stared into her lap, and a tear trickled down her cheek. “I should have gone. Maybe I could have protected her.”

“Protected her from what?” Molly asked. “Hollywood? The family curse?”

The young woman flushed. “I know it sounds foolish to you, but if you could see my family — all my relatives on my mother’s side — you could not dismiss it so easily. Ever since my great-grandmother sinned, our family has suffered. I ask only that you find out what you can.” She stood up. “What do I have to pay you?”

Molly looked at her. Though she was tall, there was an air of fragility about her, and Molly couldn’t help thinking of an orphaned child, though Rosa was obviously neither an orphan nor a child. The family had been receiving money from their wealthy daughter, but now that Ramona was dead, that might not continue, and Molly was not inclined to ask for more than the family could afford. “Write me a check for one dollar now. That will make you officially my client. We’ll come to reasonable terms later.”

Rosa hesitated, and Molly wondered whether the young woman distrusted the promises of Americans on principle. Then she realized that if the Hernandezes had a bank account, it would be in Mexico. “A dollar bill will be fine. I’ll give you a receipt.”

After Rosa left, Molly instructed Lindsey to get on the computer and dig out everything she could find about Ramona, her early career, her husband, any rumors, and the details of her demise. Then she called Danny McRae, her best operative, and instructed him to look into Tony Wiley’s friends, finances, and possible secret relationships with other women. “And see what you can find out about Ramona’s medical history. Was she ever treated for depression?” Molly knew that such matters, usually confidential, were best discovered from women friends, and Danny was good at that. “And talk to her hairdresser, her voice coach, everyone who worked with her.”

Then she looked up the phone number of Anthony Wiley.

That evening Molly sat on a dainty Victorian gold-leaf chair in the enormous living room of Wiley’s plush Bel Aire mansion. As a uniformed maid poured coffee from a silver urn into a fine china cup, Molly looked around and wondered what a sixteen-year-old girl from rural Mexico must have thought and felt when she first entered this house. Had she any notion how much that marble-topped table and those oriental carpets cost?

Across from her in a brocade Italian love seat, Tony Wiley cleared his throat. He was a small, tanned man with a receding hairline and a thin moustache that made him look as though he’d stepped out of a movie from the 1930s. “So you’re investigating my wife’s death,” he said in a slightly nasal tone. “Who hired you?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

He studied her in silence for a moment, then said, “Her family?” He shook his head. “I paid for all of them to attend the funeral. I had the medical examiner speak with them personally. They’re all very religious, and I knew her suicide would be hard on them. I thought they understood.”

“Apparently they still have some questions,” Molly said. She watched the small man stiffen at her words, and decided to approach the matter obliquely. She took a sip of her coffee. “Tell me how you discovered her.”

Wiley’s steel-gray eyes appraised her as he bit his lower lip. Finally he said, “I’m a deal-maker, Ms. Renquist. I live in a world of phones, fax machines, and unending stress. Eight years ago, I was a physical wreck. My blood pressure was soaring; I had constant migraines. My doctor advised me to get away, so I took a month off — rented a little house in rural Mexico. Only my secretary knew how to reach me, and she had orders not to, unless it was a question of life or death.”

He leaned back in the love seat and clasped his carefully manicured hands across his stomach. “By the third week I was bored silly, and upon the advice of the local cantina owner, I went to a tiny village to observe the celebration of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. There, in a small adobe church, I heard Ramona sing. She was a child with the body of a woman and the voice of an angel. I knew I had a fortune in the making.”

“So you married this child?” Molly tried hard not to let animosity creep into her voice.

Wiley shrugged. “It was the only way her father would let me take her to the U.S.” He glanced toward the leaded-glass windows, then back at Molly, his gray eyes steady. “As I said, I’m a deal-maker, and in my world, marriage is just another deal. I assume you’ll be poking around in my life, so I won’t claim to have been entirely faithful to her, but my affairs have been very discreet, and she never knew about them.” He sighed. “I treated Ramona very well, Ms. Renquist. Ask anyone.”

Molly fully intended to, but said nothing. Instead, she asked, “Did Ramona ever tell you she believed she was cursed?”

“Ah yes, the family curse. She told me about it years ago. I chalked it up to silly superstition at the time.” He stared into the distance and said softly, “But it was real. Not that anyone could do anything about it.”

“Is that the reason the autopsy results were sealed?”

He straightened, the lines in his face deepened, and his voice became hard. “The results of the autopsy are entirely a private matter.” He stood up and indicated the door. “I believe this discussion is over.”

Back in her car, Molly tried to sort out her impressions. She usually trusted her gut, for over the years she’d discovered that it was pretty accurate. But she didn’t have a clear take on Wiley. He was hiding something; that was for sure. On the other hand, Molly had caught genuine emotional overtones in his voice when he spoke about Ramona. She flashed back to those dark days right after the brain tumor had taken Tom. The sudden emptiness of the house, the stab of pain brought by catching sight of her wedding ring, her reluctance to take it off.

She’d glanced at Wiley’s left hand before leaving. The golden band was still there. Wiley was genuinely grieving, but was it for his wife or for the loss of a further fortune?

The next morning Lindsey greeted Molly as she entered the office. Her brown eyes were flashing with excitement, and she carried a notebook and a manila folder.

“Here’s all the stuff I got on Ramona, boss.” She glanced at the first page of the notebook. “She came on the scene a little more than six and a half years ago when she recorded a bunch of Mexican ballads in Spanish. She’s described as ‘barely eighteen, shy, speaking broken English.’ In the interviews from that time, her husband, who was also her agent and manager, did most of the talking for her.”

Lindsey looked up. “But she must have been a quick study, because less than two years later, she was described as ‘confident,’ even ‘bubbly,’ and ‘speaking fluent English.’ She was singing more popular tunes, appearing on television, and doing personal tours. When she was twenty-two, she made her first movie. The tabloids didn’t have a bad thing to say about her. Their only complaint was that the husband kept the paparazzi at a distance.” She turned the page in her notebook. “And just two months ago, she landed the position of spokesperson for Dazzle Cosmetics. They were going to call her ‘The Quintessential Woman.’”

“Pretty heady stuff for a poor girl from rural Mexico,” Molly said.

Lindsey nodded. “As for the husband, he’s got an ex-wife who says only that he worked too much and cheated on her a couple of times. She claims they had an amicable divorce — I took that to mean she got a good settlement. There were no kids. I couldn’t uncover any gossip about other women. The servants say Ramona and Tony got along, although one of the maids thought Tony acted more like a father than a husband.”

Molly interrupted. “Rosa mentioned that her sister said something about her marriage being over. Any chance that she was thinking of ending it? If so, Tony would have had a lot to lose.”

Lindsey frowned. “I didn’t think to ask, but” — she thumbed through her notes until she found what she was looking for — “both the housekeeper and the personal maid said Ramona didn’t appear to be angry with Tony. In fact, the maid specifically said that her attitude was apologetic. And she also told me that he didn’t appear to be angry, either. He seemed to be trying to comfort her, but nobody has any idea about what. I got the clear impression that all the servants loved her. Most of them are Hispanic and they appreciated that Ramona spoke their language. Apparently she frequently gave them gifts and told them stories about her family. They said she was like one of them.”

Molly considered. Had Ramona, against all odds, become pregnant and lost the baby early on? That might account for her depression and Tony’s efforts to comfort her. But if she’d become pregnant once, there was at least hope it might happen again — and why should it mean the end of her marriage? “What were you able to find out about her death?” she asked.

Lindsey shook her head, making her brown curls tumble about her face. “They were all pretty tight-lipped. Only the housekeeper was willing to talk to me about that day, and she was adamant that Señor Wiley must not find out. I gather everyone was warned about reporters.”

Molly nodded. “And what did the housekeeper say?”

“She said Ramona was not herself earlier that week. She seemed preoccupied and upset. She wasn’t eating. But the day before her death she appeared to be much better — ‘at peace,’ were her exact words. That’s why the housekeeper said it was such a shock to find her dead the next morning.”

Molly interrupted. “It’s a common phenomenon. When a person finally makes the decision to commit suicide, others perceive a calmness about them and mistakenly think they’re getting better.”

Lindsey nodded. “Also, there was a bottle of vodka in her room. The housekeeper said she’d never seen liquor there before — that in fact, the señora seldom drank, and then only a glass or two of wine when they had dinner guests.”

“Any indication what was on her mind?”

“Uh-uh. The servants wouldn’t feel it was their place to ask, but both the housekeeper and the personal maid agreed that something was wrong.”

Molly frowned. “How did it happen that the housekeeper found her instead of the personal maid?”

“Now that’s another interesting thing,” Lindsey said. “The maid’s quite young, probably still in her teens. Her name is Carmen, and she’s from Hermosillo. The morning before she died, Ramona gave the girl money and told her to go visit her parents.” Lindsey looked up, brows raised. “Do you think she didn’t want the girl to be the one who found her?”

Molly considered. “It certainly looks that way.” She told Lindsay to put a call in to the medical examiner. Then she took the manila folder, which contained copies of some of the articles her secretary had collected as well as photographs of Ramona that had been taken over the years. Placing the pictures in chronological order across the top of her desk, Molly saw the transformation of a shy young woman into a Hollywood personality. The earliest photo was of a pretty Latina, no more than a child, with an air of barely concealed bewilderment in her dark eyes. From left to right, the pictures showed a progression. Ramona had become more confident, comfortable with the aura of glamour. She’d learned how to woo the camera. In the most recent photo, she wore a hot-pink sequined strapless gown that displayed her cleavage favorably. Her signature diamonds dangled at her ears and throat; her head tilted slightly to the right, and her full luscious lips displayed a mischievous smile. The note on the back indicated the picture had been a preliminary shot for the “Quintessential Woman” campaign.

Molly stared at the wide brown eyes looking out of the picture. Where was the girl who’d grown up with a curse upon her? Was she still in there, afraid, ashamed, alone?

Awhile later, Danny McRae came into the office. A small man with a boyish face and sandy hair, Danny was blessed with the best characteristic an investigator could have: People didn’t particularly notice him, and when they did, they never felt threatened. He had a gift for getting others to confide in him. He sat down and whipped out his notebook, but he didn’t bother to look at it. Danny had a photographic memory.

“What did you find out?” Molly asked.

He grinned, momentarily exposing the small gap between his two front teeth. “First, Wiley’s friends. He doesn’t have many — not social friends, anyhow. They all seemed to be business associates. Their stories match closely, however. They agree that Wiley and his wife were more like agent and client or father and daughter than lovers, but they all said he respected and protected Ramona. A couple of them told me they assumed he had other female interests, but no one knew anything for certain. It seems Tony Wiley was unusually circumspect for someone in the Hollywood life.”

Danny closed his green eyes for a moment, as though he were reading the inside of his eyelids. “He uses a very reputable accounting agency, and the scuttlebutt is that there’s nothing funny going on. He managed all of Ramona’s money, and a couple of deals went south, but apparently they were legitimate investments. The upshot is that she made a lot of money and he made the money grow.

“As for her medical history, I was able to find out that she had a couple of recent appointments with a Dr. Hugh Blackman — a gynecologist who specializes in infertility problems. It seems she saw him shortly after she and Tony were married, and some fairly minor procedure was done at that time. No indication what she saw him about lately. Otherwise, she avoided doctors. Except for a couple of sore throats over the years, she’s been very healthy.”

Molly digested that information for a minute, and then said, “But for some reason she recently decided to see not just any doctor, but an infertility specialist. This from a woman who supposedly has known for years that she’s infertile.” She turned to Danny and explained, “Her family blames it on a curse.”

He blinked and shrugged. “Maybe she’d been in the U.S. long enough to stop believing in curses. Maybe she just wanted to know why she couldn’t have children.”

Molly nodded. “Why don’t you get friendly with one of Dr. Blackman’s nurses? Don’t ask about Ramona specifically, but inquire about some of the unusual genetic reasons for female infertility. Ask if they’ve seen any such cases lately.”

As he headed for the door, Molly added, “And check out the backgrounds of the servants and anyone else who might have had access to the house that night.”

As Danny was leaving, Lindsey buzzed to say the medical examiner was on the line. Molly picked up and said, “Hey, Jim.”

“What can I do for you, Molly?”

“I know you did the autopsy on Ramona Wiley.”

He drew an audible breath. “Those records have been sealed. I can’t discuss them with you.”

“I realize that. But you did have a press conference regarding the case. You said it was definitely suicide.”

“No doubt about it, Molly. Pills and liquor. If you’re wondering whether someone else killed her, you’re wasting your time.”

“Can you tell me whether you know why she killed herself?”

Silence. At last he said, “She didn’t leave a note, if that’s what you mean.”

Molly persisted. “But you do know why?”

“I can’t talk about it, Molly. It’s just tragic.”

“Doesn’t her family have the right to know?”

He sighed. “The situation is complex, and it’s not my decision. The court has ruled.”

“One last question,” Molly said. “Was she dying?”

“No. She was healthy as a horse.”

Molly hung up and buried her face in her hands. What on earth could be so terrible as to make Ramona kill herself, and why was it so important that it be kept secret?

Rosa called that afternoon, her voice pleading and impatient. “Have you learned anything?”

Molly drew a deep breath and considered how best to word what she had to say. “So far, Miss Hernandez, there’s no indication that your sister was murdered.”

“So you found nothing?” she asked.

“On the contrary.” Molly tried to keep her voice mild. “Everything we’ve discovered points to her suicide.”

There was a long silence on the phone, so long that she wondered whether Rosa had simply left the phone off the hook and walked away. But at last she said, “If my sister really did kill herself, I need to know why.”

Molly assured her that she and her staff were still working on it.

That night Molly fell asleep on the sofa listening to Ramona’s CDs. Her voice was soft and throaty in the low registers, clear and crystalline in the upper ones. Both carried an undertone of wisdom and sorrow that tugged at heart strings. Molly dreamed of a small dark-eyed girl who whispered sadly, “There is no escape.”

In the morning, Danny dropped a sheaf of papers on her desk. “First, all of the servants checked out. The housekeeper was the only one in the place the night Ramona died, and she’s clean. They’ve got a state-of-the-art burglar system, and the housekeeper swears she set it that night, so no one else could have broken in.”

He looked at her with tired eyes. “I did what you told me to. Made friends with Blackman’s nurse. She was eager to tell me that Blackman treated a lot of celebrities, and that Ramona was one of them. I tried to be as casual as possible and suggested that the singer and her husband might be trying to start a family. She said she couldn’t tell me, of course. That was confidential. But she admitted she’d been curious herself, and tried to peek into Ramona’s medical records, and here’s the strange thing: The records were never returned to the files after her visits. Blackman must have kept them.”

“Why would he do that?”

“That’s what I asked. She said sometimes he holds onto them in order to consult with another doctor, but she didn’t think that was the reason, because even after Ramona’s death, the records never showed up.”

Molly frowned. “So what did you do?”

“I’d convinced her I was a journalist doing research on the causes of infertility, and she gave me a lot of references. I spent the night on the Internet. The results are in front of you. I think the pages on top have the answer, although the first time through, I overlooked that condition. It didn’t seem to apply. Later I got to thinking and I reconsidered.”

“So?”

He grinned widely. “It’s complicated. Read for yourself.”

She spent the next hour reading and rereading the tract he’d found, trying to assimilate the scientific aspects. Then she looked through the rest of the material Danny had collected and came to the conclusion that he was right. She was pretty sure she now knew why Ramona killed herself and why Tony had hushed it up. But she needed to speak with Wiley to make certain. She glanced at the clock on her desk. Rosa was due in a couple of hours.

Molly found Tony Wiley in his luxurious fourteenth-floor office. His secretary insisted Mr. Wiley couldn’t be disturbed, but Molly pushed past her. She found him behind a huge cherrywood desk piled with manila folders, the phone ringing, the fax machine spewing out paper. He looked up, annoyed, and said, “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“Okay. Just listen,” Molly said. “I think I know everything anyway. You see, I’ve learned about AIS.”

He paled and waved at the secretary who was still standing in the doorway, looking apologetic. “Hold all my calls, Christine.” To Molly, he said, “Sit down.” He waited.

She drew a deep breath and began. “You first took Ramona to Dr. Blackman shortly after you were married. I assume she had some difficulty with her — shall we say — wifely duties?”

He looked irritated. “Blackman said she had a birth defect, easily corrected with a nonsurgical procedure, which he performed. At the time, I assumed that was what the so-called curse was about.”

“Did he say anything else? Recommend further tests?”

“As a matter of fact,” he said slowly, “he did. He took me aside and said that he suspected she had a rare genetic condition. That there might be a small increased possibility of cancer. He wanted to do more tests. He said even if the tests were positive, relatively minor surgery could prevent the cancer. But when I explained this to Ramona, she was adamant. No more doctors, no tests, and above all, no surgery. You have to understand she grew up in circumstances where people rarely consulted doctors. They were associated with death.”

“And she wasn’t worried about cancer?”

Wiley shook his head. “She said there were lots of women in her family who had the same condition and none of them had ever gotten cancer.”

“I assume something changed lately that made her go back to Blackman.”

He chewed on his lower lip. “She didn’t tell me she’d made an appointment. I found out her hairdresser was diagnosed with breast cancer a couple of months ago. That’s probably what started her worrying.”

“And this time the doctor did the tests and told her she had AIS.”

Tony Wiley covered his eyes with his hands. “Damn fool doctor,” he muttered. “He should have told me, too. I should have been with her, but I had no idea.”

“So how did you find out?”

“She told me. She was in tears, freaked out, actually. I said it didn’t matter. She was the same person she’d always been. I wasn’t going to divorce her.”

Molly was surprised. “You would have stayed married, knowing?”

He shrugged. “Hey, this is Hollywood. Unconventional marriages are common. Besides, she was easy to get along with.” He paused.

“Also, she made a lot of money for you, and you managed to have your affairs on the side.”

He colored and his voice became sharper. “You make me sound crass. Whether you believe it or not, I cared about Ramona. I did my best to assure her nothing would change. I would never have gone out of town if I’d realized she was still so upset. But after a few days, she seemed to calm down. We had already made an appointment with a therapist — we were going to work everything out. She actually appeared happy the day I left.” He put his elbows on his desk and his head in his hands. “What are you going to do?” he mumbled.

“I have to meet with Rosa this afternoon.”

“You can’t tell her!” He looked up at Molly, his face actually livid.

“Don’t you think she and her family have a right to know? What about the other ‘cursed’ sisters?”

He stood up. “Consider the consequences! How do you think their families and neighbors will treat them if it comes out? Those people don’t have access to therapists to help them deal with such information! At least now, they have a place in their society, albeit a lesser one. But if you tell them—” He broke off.

His passion surprised Molly. He’d obviously given the matter a lot of thought. And he had a point. But her client was paying her to discover the truth. What was the right thing to do?

Molly was still agonizing when Rosa arrived in her office late that afternoon. The young Latina sat down in Tom’s old chair and looked at Molly apprehensively. “What have you found out?”

Molly studied the beautiful woman and pain shot through her heart. Rosa looked so much like her famous sister had when she first came to the U.S. It was almost as though Molly were speaking to the younger Ramona. The thought struck her: What if she had had the chance to prevent the singer from discovering she had AIS?

“I wish I could answer all your questions, but all I can tell you is that Ramona definitely took her own life. There is no possibility of foul play.”

“But why?” Sorrow and disbelief were evident in her face.

“I’m afraid she chose to keep her reasons to herself.” Molly felt a stab of guilt as she spoke the words which were not entirely true. Yet Ramona had chosen not to tell her family that she and her beautiful sisters, aunts, and nieces had inherited androgen insensitivity syndrome — that their lush bodies, genetically programmed to be male, were producing plenty of testosterone, but a broken gene on their X chromosomes prevented the hormone from doing its job. Molly didn’t explain that nature, in fickle efficiency, had been converting the useless testosterone into estrogen since they’d been in their mother’s wombs, altering their physical development so that by the time of birth they appeared to be normal, healthy little girls, when in fact they were highly feminized males.

Rosa looked pensive. “I have been doing much thinking. Perhaps Hollywood was the worst place for Ramona to live. Here there is so much fuss made about celebrity women who are having babies — even when they aren’t married. They show off their big tummies like — how do you say? — trophies. Maybe — maybe Ramona worried they would wonder why she and Tony didn’t have any children. Maybe she felt like a fraud being called ‘The Quintessential Woman.’”

Molly held her breath, stunned. Rosa had come dangerously close to the truth.

The woman reached into her purse to pay Molly’s fee, but the investigator waved her protests off. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be more helpful.” After Rosa left, Molly leaned back in her chair and reflected that she couldn’t have accepted a fee when she was withholding vital information. Yet, in some strange way, she felt a much deeper obligation to Ramona — a woman she’d never met but whose recorded voice would always haunt her.

Copyright © 2010 Stephanie Kay Bendel

Io, Saturnalia!

by Margaret Maron

“Many scholars draw parallels between ancient Rome’s Saturnalia, celebrated over several days in late December, and today’s Christmas,” Margaret Maron told EQMM. “The use of evergreen wreaths to decorate the homes, the exchange of gifts, the feasting, caroling, etc. Some even claim that Santa’s red cap is a lineal descendent of the pointed red wool freedman’s cap that everyone wore throughout the festival to denote a temporary equality that added to the cheer of the season. (Incidentally, according to my Latin dictionary, ‘Io’ has the same pronunciation and general meaning as our modern ‘Yo!’)”

In a year of three emperors, my father had the bad judgment to champion publicly the cause of the second emperor and his bad judgment was compounded by a stubborn honor that would not allow him to recant when the besieging armies of the third emerged victorious.

On the first day of his trial, when it became evident that a verdict of treason would be passed against him, my father came home from court, added new codicils to his will, and wrote several letters. Then, kissing me tenderly and bidding farewell to his weeping household, he retired to his inner chamber to open his veins, for by law the property of a man convicted of treason is forfeited to the state; yet if he dies before such a verdict is rendered, he may dispose of his estate as he sees fit.

In thus anticipating the inevitability of his death, my father secured our inheritance.

My mother took this opportunity to end her own existence as well. That poor sickly lady had exhausted her life adhering to the old republican ideals of womanhood, mater and domina. She should have been the vestal instead of my aunt Statilia, who hid in a clothespress when the escort came to deliver her to the chief pontiff.

As the name AEelia Tertia plainly shows, I was the third daughter of AElius Fabius Marius, the only girl child to live past a first birthday. Each of the eight years between my single brother and myself had been marked by funeral rites for pathetic little scraps of humanity that never quite caught the breath of life; and although my mother sacrificed daily to all the goddesses of maternity, those annual beginnings of life which continued after my birth never again quickened into fruition.

My brother she handed over to pedagogues and tutors without a murmur, at the earliest possible age, that he should study all the usual subjects and be trained in martial arts and skills. One of her ancestors had been a general under Augustus, and during the reign of the deified Claudius, another had been part of the raid on Germania that recovered the lost eagles of Varus. Willingly had she dedicated the first locks of my brother’s hair to Mars, god of war.

In the matter of my education, however, she found the energy to resist my father almost to the point of disobedience, for she wished me to learn traditional virtues and to keep me ignorant of everything save spinning and weaving and ordering a household for my husband’s comfort.

“Have I not lived twenty-seven years without rhetoric and philosophy?” cried my mother. “What need has our daughter for aught beyond simple reading and enough ciphering to keep her servants from cheating her in the markets?”

“You have often praised my uniqueness,” Father said drily. “Should not AElia know how to manage her own property in case Marcus Porcius proves less the paragon for her than I have been for you?”

(I had been informally betrothed to the son of my father’s oldest friend since birth.)

In the end, of course, Father’s vigorous strength overrode her pallid weakness and at the age of four I was given tutors of my own and taught all that any boy would learn save military strategy and oratory.

In this, my father’s latent conservatism revealed itself, for he said, “While it is highly unlikely that a girl as willful as you, daughter, will hold her tongue in public, I am not obliged to encourage impropriety by training that tongue.”

With an invalid’s persistence, my mother seized upon this exception and coopted the time that would have been spent upon oratory for training me in more domestic arts. The whippings she gave me for stupidly-done assignments were more numerous than from all my tutors combined; and when she announced her intent to accompany my father to the underworld, I am ashamed to confess that my first involuntary thought was, Now I shall never have to touch a spindle again!

At that, I burst into tears, and Mother was moved.

“Do you then love me after all?” she asked, curious.

I implored her not to abandon me, but the fear that had gripped her during the past weeks had sapped her frail energy.

“I am too tired, child,” she said sadly. “My duty is with your father still. He has provided for your safety. Quintus Porcius will take you into his household until you are wed.”

Her own tears flowed then, for long ago she had woven my flame-colored bridal veil and had spoken fondly of the day when she would dress me for my marriage. Yet, even for that she would not stay, but disentangled her hands from mine and followed my father into their death chamber and closed the door upon me...

With my brother somewhere in Britannia, on the far edge of the empire, the stain upon my father’s honor, and the approach of Saturnalia, the funeral rites for my parents were somewhat curtailed. Nevertheless, my mother’s sister was a well-respected vestal and arranged that all was done with fitting dignity.

And so it was that at the age of eleven, I passed into the household of Quintus Porcius Cassius and his wife Prisca Publius, parents of the youth for whom I was intended. Because of my tender years, my Greek nurse and two of my personal servants were allowed to come with me. Those servants that had not been manumitted or otherwise disposed of by my father’s will were, of course, sold, and loud were their complaints at missing his generous gifts that this season had always brought them.

When the bearers set my chair down inside the domus and threw back the curtain, it took all my courage to step out and face my new family. I missed my mother more intensely than I could have dreamed possible. It was as if I had been sheltered all my life by an enormous oak and now that tree had fallen and I was exposed to a merciless sun. My small fingers tightened upon the golden bulla she had tied around my neck the day I was born, a walnut-sized amulet against evil that all girls wear until their wedding day. On the day of her death, she had opened mine and added a hair from one of her ancestors, then resealed the two hollow halves with wax. “He will keep you safe against the coming dangers,” she promised.

Silently, I prayed for his help as my nurse removed the thick shawl I had worn against the dank winter evening. Prisca Publius and Quintus Porcius came forward to welcome me with kisses. Behind them stood their only child.

Marcus Porcius Cassius! How tall he had grown. And handsome. Although his own bulla shone against his boyish long-sleeved tunic and his black curls were still worn long, the beginning of a beard darkened his chin.

In my mind’s eye I yet can see his friendly smile of welcome. We stared at each other in frank curiosity, having seen each other but seldom, for my mother had kept me close and he had accompanied his father to our home no more than twice or three times. In two years, we would be married, but at that moment, I was very conscious of being still a child when his beautiful dark eyes swept over me and lingered on my chest. On my flat chest, be it said, because I had not begun to bud.

Amusement broadened his smile and in a voice as deep as any man’s, he said, “Gaia?”

Until then I had felt very small and bereft, but now I lifted my chin and met his eyes. “And you are Gaius,” I said boldly.

Everyone around us, even the servants, laughed approvingly at our teasing reference to the vow I would one day speak: When and where you are Gaius, then and there am I Gaia.

I was given one of the choicest rooms along the peristyle, a room that would be flooded each morning by the sun, which was very welcome these chilly winter days. It had belonged to Quintus Porcius’s father, a wise and elderly patrician who had choked on a pigeon bone a few months earlier. Although Prisca spoke of him with respect so that I might fully appreciate the honor she did me in giving me his room, my nurse Marilla soon brought me the servants’ gossip and it was much less flattering. “Wise he might have been, but he swilled his food like a swineherd and a wonder it was that he had not choked long before.”

His death had occurred the same month Marcus was to have assumed the toga of manhood and it would have been unlucky to hold the ceremony in the fall. Instead he would wait until a more propitious day in the spring, even though he had already passed his sixteenth birthday. Marilla also told me that Marcus had thought to have this room once he was a man, but it was considered fitting that I sleep here now, with my nurse and maidservants on pallets beside me.

I quickly learned that Prisca managed her household less efficiently than my mother. The house swarmed with servants, yet the rooms were not swept every day, the brasses did not shine, and even the ancestral busts and masks that hung in the tablinum were not properly dusted. Nor did the servants hold their tongues when she spoke, but seemed to feel at liberty to interrupt with a boldness that would have earned them a whipping from my mother.

Indeed, Prisca was kindhearted and wastefully generous. My bed was softer and had twice the covers I had known before, and a heavy curtain over the doorway kept out the wind. As the winter days shortened and darkened, I was even given a brazier to warm the chamber and pure white candles to light my way to bed, indulgences my mother never allowed.

I slipped into their household like an eel into the fishpond in the middle of the garden, a transition made easier with the approach of Saturnalia. Any other time of the year and I would have been subjected to the most intense scrutiny from the lowest gardener’s boy to the head steward who attended Quintus Porcius at his morning visitations, but preparations for the “best of days” were well in hand when I arrived and excitement filled the domus. Cries of “Io, Saturnalia!” echoed through every room and each day brought fresh supplies from their country estates. Noisy geese and ducks and all manner of game birds arrived in crates for the feasting to come, along with flour, olives, cheeses, and a huge supply of candles that would be given as gifts to all of Quintus Porcius’s clients.

Boughs of fresh, red-berried holly decorated the walls, and my own servants turned their hands to making wreaths of yew and cedar. On the eve of Saturnalia, Prisca let me help her attach silver rings, candles, and sweetmeats to the wreaths that would be distributed to her lesser friends. Her greater friends would receive wreaths adorned with gold earrings and cameos carved in the likeness of various goddesses.

I had assumed my father’s wealth matched, if not surpassed, that of his old friend, yet my mother had never given such gifts as these.

“Oh!” I said when her maidservant handed Prisca a particularly lovely pendant. A large lustrous pearl glowed in the middle of golden flames and smaller pearls glistened around the rim.

“Vesta?” I asked, for I had never seen an image of our holiest goddess except as her embodiment in sacred fire.

She nodded. “It’s for your aunt Statilia. She is very fond of you, AElia, and will no doubt make you her heir someday.”

In those days I cared little about legacies. Of more interest was the beautiful pendant. It hung on a slender gold chain and I slipped it around my neck. Marilla held up a hand mirror that I might admire myself. With reluctance, I handed it back to Prisca, who said, “Your mother told me that you love pearls as much as her sister.”

I was surprised that my mother had taken note of my preference on the rare occasions when she let me play with her jewelry. “They are my favorite,” I said. “She had a ring with a pearl that glowed like the moon, but she seldom wore it. When I am married, I shall wear it every day.”

Prisca gave one of those tolerant smiles that adults usually gave whenever I said something like that and murmured that perhaps I would find such a ring cumbersome when I had babies to tend. That ring is on my finger even as I write these words. In all the years since it became mine, only once has it been removed against my will, and he paid with his life for the insult.

But that is a later story for another time.

Now, she fastened the pendant to a fragrant wreath of cedar and tied the wreath with colorful ribbons. A servant hung it among the others that decorated the tablinum wall next to the atrium. Everything looked festive, and appetizing odors drifted in from the kitchen for the feasting to come.

The natural order of society is reversed during Saturnalia. The low are set high, the high are brought low. Servants are the masters, and masters are the servants. Wine is drunk by all, and everyone feasts every night. Servants are even allowed to play knucklebones and to gamble openly, something forbidden them the rest of the year (although many there are that flout that law!). At night, bands of raucous and sometimes naked revelers roam the streets to sing hymns before the houses, and the days are passed in games and visits and exchanges of presents. All businesses are closed and no work is done except what is needful for the celebration itself. Small wonder that the household was in a ferment of excitement.

Shortly after darkness fell, I retired to my room in the hope that sleep would make the night pass more quickly. Marilla and my maidservants were soon in the arms of Morpheus, but he eluded my entreaties. Memories of past Saturnalias haunted my thoughts — my father’s measured dignity when he and my brother each wore the pointed red wool pileus on their heads and served our servants at their annual feast, my mother’s attention to every detail as she and I poured wine for them. I wondered if she had found peace in the underworld or if it was her restlessness there that made me restless now. After tossing and turning until all the household noises died away, I rose and wrapped a shawl around my shoulders. The floor was icy, but I could not find my house slippers in the darkness and I tiptoed from the room in bare feet, intending to visit the latrine.

The moon lit my way across the peristyle, and as I passed Marcus Porcius’s room, I heard low murmurs and his deep voice mingled with a woman’s soft laughter. Candlelight glowed through a small slit at the top of the heavy curtain drawn across his doorway. So! In addition to a man’s voice and a man’s beard, he partook of a man’s pleasures as well? I remembered similar murmurs from my brother’s room before he left to join his legion, and the servant who slept outside his door was no more wakeful then than the servant snoring on his pallet in front of Marcus’s room now.

I had not taken much notice of Prisca’s servants and could not call to mind the face of any who might have caught his eye, but surely Marilla would know.

When I was finished in the latrine, I peeked into the kitchen, which was next-door. The room was hot and brightly lit by both the flames on the open hearth and a candle on the work table. The cook, a portly man of middle age, gave me a friendly smile as he turned a goose on the spit and basted it with a long-handled brush. “You cannot sleep, young mistress?”

“I keep thinking about tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t see how anyone can sleep.”

I perched upon a low stool at the table and tucked my cold feet under me to watch him work.

“Have you been with the household long?” I asked.

“I was born into this family,” he said proudly. “The old master wished to free me before he died, but I begged him not to. Better a slave with a full belly in the house of Cassius than a freedman who slaves to earn his daily ration of bread.”

He placed a freshly baked honeycake before me, and as I nibbled it, he spoke of the long and noble line that my sons would continue when they were born, the gods willing. By the time I finished the honeycake, the warm room and the drone of his voice had me yawning, and I started back to bed.

A candle still burned in Marcus’s room, but except for a soft snore beneath the heavier ones of the sleeping manservant, there was no sound from within when I passed. As I crossed the peristyle, I thought I saw a movement in the tablinum where Quintus Porcius held morning receptions. The screens had been pulled aside in readiness for tomorrow’s festivities and I could see into the atrium where the moon shone through the compluvium that opened in the ceiling. Moonbeams sparkled on the fountain below. I strained my eyes and whispered, “Who goes there?”

No answer.

I crept closer to the tablinum, so close that I could smell the cedar and yew wreaths that decorated the walls. In the deepest shadows at the end of the long vestibule beyond the atrium, I discerned the dark shape of the doorkeeper asleep on his pallet.

Emboldened that someone was close enough to hear me should I call for help, I went into the tablinum and looked around. There was barely enough moonlight to make out my aunt’s pendant. I wanted to reach up and touch the pearl’s cool silky surface, but even standing on tiptoe, I was not quite tall enough. Earlier in the day, I had thought it more oval than round, but here in the dimness, it looked like a full moon, a moon obscured by thin clouds. If my aunt did make me her heir, as Prisca predicted, then this pearl, too, might be mine someday.

I was not a timorous child, but the ancestral busts and masks seemed to glare at me in silent disapproval of my greedy thoughts, and my chilled feet soon persuaded me that I had seen nothing more than moonbeams on the dancing jets of water. I retreated to my room. Moments later, I was snuggled deep inside my warm covers and knew nothing more until Marilla pulled my toes and said, “Io, Saturnalia, sleepyhead!”

One maid held a basin of water to wash my face and the other arranged my hair after I dressed. From the bottom of my clothespress, Marilla drew forth a pair of beautiful shoes made of soft blue leather and stitched with tiny pearls. With tears in her eyes, she said, “Your mother bade me give you these on this day.”

Choking back my own tears, I took from a locked chest the new tunics Mother had provided for Marilla and my two servants.

The other Saturnalia gifts — small pouches of coins — I would distribute over the next few days.

“I love Saturnalia!” I said. “It’s my favorite festival and I hope it will last a thousand years.”

Marilla laughed. “And why should it not last forever, little goose?”

We hurried out to the atrium where everyone was gathering to leave for the temple of Saturn. All were dressed in new clothes and Prisca’s hair was elaborately styled with ringlets that framed her face and were held in place by golden hairpins set with colored jewels.

“How beautiful you look!” I exclaimed and she beamed as she touched the new hairpins, evidently a Saturnalia gift from Quintus Porcius.

The morning ritual at the family altar was less solemn than usual, but I murmured prayers to Vesta and to my parents, with a special thank-you to my mother for my pretty blue shoes, then followed the others into the vestibule.

Prisca made room for me in her chair while Quintus and Marcus had separate chairs. Most of our servants waited to escort us and to clear the way through the crowded streets.

As the doorkeeper threw back the iron bar to open the tall wooden doors, Prisca suddenly remembered that she and I were to go on to the House of the Vestals after the unbinding of Saturn’s feet and she sent a maid back for the wreath she had made for my aunt. As soon as the woman handed it to Prisca, who was somewhat near-sighted, I was shocked.

“Prisca Publius! Your pearl!” I cried.

She frowned. “My pearl?”

She brought the wreath closer to her eyes and let out a shriek. The gleaming pearl had been replaced with a pearl-sized lump of white wax so cunningly shaped that no one had noticed until now. A moan of fear rippled through her servants, who knew what to expect.

Impatient to leave, Quintus got out of his chair and strode over to ours. “What’s wrong, wife?”

“Look!” she said, holding out the wreath. “Someone has stolen the pearl from the vestal’s necklace!”

“One of my household a thief?” he thundered and his eyes immediately fell on my servants.

“Never!” I said and put my small self between them and his wrath. “Marilla, speak truthfully. Did you take the pearl?”

“Nay, lady. I swear by all the gods!”

My two maidservants dropped to their knees and protested their innocence as well.

Nevertheless, Quintus demanded that they strip and their tunics were thoroughly examined by his trusted head steward. Their bodies were closely examined as well, including every orifice.

Indignantly, I demanded that the same be done to their own servants.

He held up his hand for silence. “Hear me well,” he said, speaking to the entire household. “Let the thief come forward now and you will receive only ten lashes. If you wait until you are discovered, it will be twenty lashes, and you will be sold.”

At this, the women began to wail and the men shuffled nervously.

While Marcus fumed at the thought of missing the opening festivities, the servants who were to accompany us stood naked and shivering as they and their tunics were closely examined.

When the pearl was not found, Quintus bade his steward stay and search the rest of the servants and the rooms. “All of the rooms, Cato,” he said, and his stern glance at my women made it abundantly clear which room was to receive particular scrutiny. “There will be no wearing of the pileus until that pearl is restored and the thief is punished.”

With that, he signaled for the doors to open. We resumed our chairs and our bearers were charged to walk faster than usual. The streets were thronged with merrymakers all headed for the Forum and the Temple of Saturn. Our chair rocked back and forth as our bearers jostled us around slower groups and I was thrown against Prisca, who continued to complain about the missing pearl and what my aunt Statilia would think when we did not arrive as planned.

I told her about my visit to the latrine and kitchen and how I thought I had seen a movement in the tablinum when I returned to my room. “Someone must have been hiding behind a chest.”

“You were about in the night alone?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

“Not alone,” I said. “Someone was in the tablinum.”

“And you did not waken the doorkeeper?”

“I thought perhaps I had imagined it.”

She made a show of looking at my new shoes, then said, “Your servants know how much you like pearls.”

“My servants do not steal,” I said hotly. “Besides, all three of them were asleep when I returned.”

“Exactly,” she said and did not deign to speak again.

Despite our late start, our bearers made such good progress that we reached the temple a few minutes before the priests arrived to begin the sacrifices. We stepped from our chairs and slowly made our way up to the steps of the temple itself. Even so, we were hard pressed to find space to stand, and I could see nothing until Marcus kindly lifted me in his strong arms.

“What a little thing you are,” he said, holding me by my legs.

“I will grow,” I promised and steadied myself with one arm on his shoulder so I could twist around to see the mighty statue of Saturn, who sat tall on his throne inside the temple. A scarlet mantle was draped over one shoulder and covered his lower body. His legs were crossed, and his feet were bound with red woolen cords.

Almost immediately, the chief pontifex arrived and the ritual began with prayers for the coming year. There was priestly chanting, more prayers, the sacrifices, then the pontifex slowly loosened the woolen cords and freed great Saturn’s feet.

“Io, Saturnalia!” roared the crowd, and heads blossomed with bright red pileii, the pointed freedman’s caps that signified that all men were equal for the next seven days, slaves and senators alike.

In my excitement, my wrist became tangled in the cord of Marcus’s bulla and I almost ripped it from his neck when he set me down.

The new emperor had provided huge public feasts there in the Forum. Despite the urging of his friends, Quintus Porcius allowed us only a few ceremonial bites to stay our hunger before returning to the domus. The servants were glum and apprehensive when we rejoined them, and our return was much slower than our coming.

To no one’s surprise, Cato reported that every inch of the house had been searched and the pearl had not been found. Of course, all that meant was that the thief had been moderately clever. A pearl — even a large one — is easily concealed. New to the house though I was, I could have found many hiding places: the garden was large, the passageways had loose stones, and the same wax the thief had used to fashion a fake pearl could be used to stick the real one to the bottom of a chest or bed.

Before I could follow that logic to a useful conclusion, Prisca had a different thought. Mindful, however, that I would rule this house in her place when Quintus died, she was tactful about it. “Come, AElia,” she said. “I have a Saturnalia gift for you in my chambers.”

Moments later I was standing naked before her as a maid removed my plain white wool tunic and clothed me in a long-sleeved tunica. Over that came my first grown-up stola, a sleeveless green garment that reached my ankles and was girt with bright silk ribbons. The gold shoulder clasps were studded with small colored stones.

“You will soon be a woman,” Prisca said. “For Saturnalia, you may dress as one.”

We both pretended that her desire to please me was all that mattered, and when she tied the last ribbon beneath my nonexistent breasts, I kissed her to express my thanks. I could not tell if she was pleased or disappointed that the pearl was not found among my own clothes.

Out in the tablinum, Quintus sat in his chair of state as patronus of the house. He looked up as we returned and frowned when his wife shook her head. “Cato, bring the lash,” he ordered. “If no one will confess, then all will be punished.”

“Wait, husband,” said Prisca. “Let AElia speak of what she saw in the night.”

With all eyes on me, I described my return from the kitchen and my impression that I had seen someone move from the tablinum into the atrium.

“Man or woman?”

“It was too fleeting for me to say, but when I looked up at the pendant, I did think that the pearl was more rounded than I remembered. Was it not slightly oval?” I asked Prisca.

“It was,” she agreed.

“If it was the thief I saw,” I said earnestly, “then there are at least four who could not have taken it: the cook, the gatekeeper, Marcus’s manservant, and Marcus himself.”

“You came into my room?” he asked in surprise.

“Nay. I heard you snore as I passed your door.”

No one smiled.

“Who else in this household can prove he did not take the pearl in the first part of the night?” asked Quintus in a voice of doom.

“My three servants were asleep when I left,” I told him, “and they were there when I returned. One could not have been in the atrium for she would have had to pass me to get back to our room out there on the peristyle.”

An older women spoke for three who shared her cubicle. “My pallet lies across the doorway, master. I was awake almost all night with a toothache. No one could have slipped past without I saw her.”

Four of the men had similar sleeping places and a similarly wakeful companion, but both servants paled when Cato pointed out that this left them with no one to speak for their own innocence.

“True,” I said with more assurance than I felt. “Yet, were I the thief, I would not clear another. I would try to spread suspicion on everyone. Their very words bespeak their innocence.”

For the first time since the theft was discovered, Quintus smiled, as if remembering something amusing, but he did not explain.

In the end, there were three who had no one to affirm their innocence — two women and a man. These were Sextus, short, fat, and white-haired, a former pedagogue to Marcus and now Quintus’s reader; Lydia, a comely Greek hairdresser of some twenty years; and Dorcas, a plain dark woman whose skills as a midwife were often hired by Prisca’s wide circle of friends.

Sextus and the cook normally shared a cubicle, as did Lydia and Dorcas. But last night, the cook worked late and I had left him in the kitchen immediately before seeing someone move in the atrium. When Dorcas was questioned as to whether Lydia left their cubicle, it was Marcus who answered. “I will speak for Lydia. She slept in my bed last night. All night.”

His words were no surprise to his father. Nor to several of the servants, for I saw them grin. Prisca, however, frowned, and Lydia was careful to keep her eyes cast down. Her face was not beautiful but her hair was the color of ripe wheat and her breasts and hips were soft curves beneath an elegant blue stola that Prisca had once worn.

Lydia and Dorcas were both half a head taller than I, while fat little Sextus was at least two fingers shorter.

“May I speak, Quintus Porcius?” I asked.

He gave me an indulgent nod.

“Which is the servant who brought the wreath to Prisca this morning?”

A fearful woman stepped forward. I took the pillaged wreath from the table in front of Quintus and handed it to her. “Put it back where it was before.”

When she had hung it high on the wall, I told Sextus to bring it to me. Stretch though he might, he could not touch it. When similarly directed, however, Dorcas easily lifted it from the hook.

Quintus immediately handed the lash to Cato and said, “Take her into the garden and whip her until she confesses where the pearl is hidden.”

The midwife fell to her knees in terror. Two menservants grasped her arms and began to drag her across the floor to her punishment.

“Mercy, master!” she cried. “I swear by Vesta I did not take it. You may kill me, but I cannot tell what I do not know! Mistress! You know I have never taken a crumb without permission. I beg of you!”

“Wait!” I said, my mind racing with another possibility. “Cato? When you searched the house, did you search Marcus’s room as well?”

“My room?” Marcus turned in haughty disbelief. “You accuse me of taking the pearl?”

“The patronus bade me search every room,” the steward replied. “I do as I am ordered.”

“The fake pearl was fashioned from pure white wax,” I said. “In my mother’s house, white candles were only for the family, not the servants. Was the candle in his room white or tan?”

Prisca gave an impatient wave of her hand. “My son does not use servants’ candles. Nor does he steal from me. Besides, you said you heard him snore when you passed.”

“I did,” I agreed. “But his candle still burned and I did not hear the hairdresser.”

Lydia looked at me scornfully. “The child babbles. I do not snore, and the candle burned because we were too tired to blow it out.”

Marcus was yet young enough to turn a fiery red at her words and now the other servants laughed outright.

“The hairdresser has a tongue as clever as her fingers,” I said. “Clever enough to fashion a fake pearl from white candlewax and hide the real one in the young master’s room while he slept. With warm wax, she could stick it to the underside of his bed or stool.”

“Search again,” Quintus told his steward.

Dorcas still cowered at our feet. Tearfully, she watched Cato and the others stream toward the peristyle and Marcus’s room, too terrified to hope for reprieve.

Although the others seemed ready to accept my theory, I had misgivings. If Lydia was the thief, why did she not look scared? Why was her face serene? Then her eyes met mine, and I read there a smug taunt. I was now convinced that she had indeed taken the pearl. I was equally convinced that she thought it was hidden where no one could find it.

Could she have swallowed it? Must I suggest that she be made to defecate in the garden like a dog until she passed it?

Her hands were smooth and soft, her fingernails clean and well-kept. Her yellow hair was artfully arranged and tied with colorful silk ribbons for Saturnalia. Surely such a one would not plan to pick through her own dung.

I clasped my golden bulla and prayed to the gods for help.

Lydia and I were the only two not surprised when the others returned to say that the pearl could not be found. I think Quintus wanted to believe me, but Prisca was now ready to defend Lydia. “She is the best hairdresser I have ever had,” she said. “I pay her well and give her my old clothes. She has no need to steal from me.”

“Does Dorcas?” I asked.

“Dorcas has long desired her freedom,” Prisca said. “With what she has already saved and the sale of the pearl, she could buy both her freedom and a shop of her own.”

“Mistress, no!” the midwife moaned as Cato looked questioningly at his master.

“Take her,” he said.

I watched helplessly as two menservants pulled her toward the garden. Her shrieks echoed off the walls.

“Father, wait!” said Marcus. “Must we begin Saturnalia with such unhappiness? Can her punishment not wait until the festival is ended? Given time to think, she may tell us on her own where the pearl is.”

We held our breath as Quintus hesitated. A man of action, his natural inclination was to settle everything immediately, and I feared to see Dorcas beaten bloody until it became clear that she knew nothing. At long last, he nodded.

“Your mercy does you credit, my son. It shall be as you ask. Lock her in the storeroom, Cato. Give her two lashes to taste what will come if she does not confess, then bread and water until the festival is ended.”

As they led a sobbing Dorcas to the back of the house, Quintus Porcius turned to Prisca. “Come, wife.” He gestured to the small hearth there in the atrium where bright flames flickered cheerfully before the family altar. “Let us begin this joyful day anew with fresh sacrifice to the gods.”

Prisca opened a jar of salt and everyone in the household threw a pinch into the fire as Quintus led a prayer to cleanse the house of evil and to ask Saturn’s blessing. Mine was the last pinch of salt on the fire and as the flames danced upward, everyone cried, “Io, Saturnalia!”

Someone brought forth the red freedman caps. My heart was still heavy for Dorcas, but if she screamed when being whipped, I did not hear amid the laughter and merriment that seemed to seize everyone in a giddy frenzy. It was like sunshine after rain. I put on my pileus, but Prisca’s hair was styled too high for her cap.

“Shall I take down your hair?” Lydia asked her and suddenly I knew where she had hidden the pearl.

“No!” I cried. “It’s Saturnalia and I am a servant. Command me to take down your hair, Prisca.”

Prisca laughed. “Very well, AElia. You shall be my hairdresser and then we will both dress Lydia’s hair, for today she is a mistress.”

I was pleased to see that Lydia looked discomfited, but she followed us to Prisca’s chambers and we made her sit on a cushioned stool while I carefully removed the jewels from Prisca’s elaborately curled and pinned tresses. Then I gently combed out the curls, expecting at any moment to see the pearl appear amid her dark hair.

It was not to be, and I must have let my disappointment show, for the jeering gleam in Lydia’s eyes told me that she realized what I had hoped to find.

With a pointed red cap now on Prisca’s head, we both turned to work on Lydia’s hair. My hands were not as gentle as before and she flinched when I pulled too hard on a tangle.

“It’s like spun gold,” Prisca said as we brushed and combed. “The wig maker in Fortuna Street has a new shipment of hair like this from Britannia. Wickedly expensive, but I think I shall have him make me a wig with—”

“Ow!” Lydia yelped, pulling away from the comb I wielded. “Were you truly a hairdresser, AElia, your mistress would beat you for such clumsiness.”

“Better a clumsy slave than a thieving one,” I muttered.

Lydia managed a sad tear, and kindhearted Prisca immediately scolded me for my continued suspicions. “Was it not proved that only Dorcas could have taken the pearl?”

I remained obstinately silent and Prisca misinterpreted. “Oh, child! Are you jealous of Lydia because she has warmed Marcus’s bed? It means nothing. When you are a woman and his lawful wife, I am sure that he will be as dutiful to you as Quintus is to me. You need not fear any servant, even one so pretty as Lydia.”

Lydia clasped Prisca’s hand and kissed it, murmuring such sycophantic words of gratitude and praise that I could not stay to listen.

Out in the front garden, the servants scurried back and forth. The day was sunny and quite warm for December, so warm that their Lord of Misrule, the jolly round-bellied Sextus, had decreed the use of the larger summer triclinium for their first feast. In keeping with their reversed roles, Cato carried out the goose I had seen roasting the night before and Quintus Porcius and Marcus each bore a tray of bread. I joined them with a small jug of olive oil.

While the household feasted, Quintus retired to his chamber and I went out to the garden pool with a bowl of breadcrumbs to feed the fish. Marcus came, too, and sat on the edge of the pool to watch me scatter crumbs on the water.

“Thank you for saving the midwife,” I told him. “You were kind.”

He shrugged away my thanks. “Dorcas was my nurse when I was a baby. She helped my mother birth me. I have asked Father to free her, but Mother will not give up the money she gets for the hire of her services. And Dorcas is not saved, AElia, merely reprieved until Saturnalia is over.”

“All the same, you do not believe she is the thief, do you?”

His face was troubled as he leaned over the fish pond. “No.”

I think it was at that moment that I began to love him and I was grateful that my parents had chosen so wisely. My eyes sharpened as I took in every detail of his being — his dark curls falling over his forehead, his fine features, his manly form clothed in a boy’s white tunic, the golden bulla he would lay aside when he became an adult citizen in the spring, the—

“Marcus, tell me,” I said suddenly. “Did you drink wine last night? Is that why you snored?”

He nodded sheepishly. “More than one cup, I fear, and barely watered.”

“Go find Cato,” I said, “and bring him to your father’s chamber. I think I know where the pearl is.”

By the time they arrived, I had explained my reasoning to Quintus and he had called for Prisca and Lydia, who were still in Prisca’s chamber nearby.

“Look at our bullae,” I said to Marcus. “Both are sealed with a thin line of white wax. My mother opened mine the day of her death and added an extra charm, so the wax is still fresh and white. Yet the wax is even fresher on your bulla. When was it last opened?”

“In the spring,” Prisca said slowly. “When the grandfather died, I added one of his hairs that Marcus might gain his wisdom.”

As Quintus held out his hand for Marcus’s bulla, Lydia made a dash for the doorway, but Cato caught her by her long yellow hair and held on till she sank to the floor and began to wail.

White-faced, Prisca watched as Quintus inserted a thin blade between the two halves of the bulla and twisted gently. There among the other amulets gleamed that lustrous pearl.

“You defiled my son’s bulla with your thievery?” Prisca hissed and slapped the woman who now begged for mercy.

Quintus turned to his steward. “Cato, lock her in the storeroom. We will deal with her later. Then bring Dorcas and all the servants to the atrium.”

When we entered the tablinum from the garden and Quintus Porcius took his seat, everyone crowded in from the atrium. The household was abuzz with the news of Lydia’s guilt and Dorcas’s innocence. Because the one was a fairly recent purchase and not much liked while the other was known for her many years of loyal service, it was a joyful buzz.

“Step forward, Dorcas.”

The midwife came and knelt before her master. Her face was ravaged from crying and dark circles ringed her eyes

“You were wrongly accused and wrongly punished,” Quintus said. “When work resumes after the holidays, I shall invite the magistrate to dinner and manumit you officially, but from this moment on, you are truly a free woman.”

At that, he placed the red pileus on her head and raised her up and kissed her on both cheeks.

Cheers rang from the servants, and I cheered, too. Only Prisca was left frowning as the servants went back to their feast. “I have lost the best hairdresser I ever had and now I must lose my midwife’s earnings as well?”

“I shall buy you a new hairdresser,” Quintus promised.

“See that she is old,” Prisca said, with a wry look at Marcus. “And homely.”

He laughed as Cato melted some red sealing wax and they resealed his bulla in a wax that could not be easily duplicated.

Quintus Porcius smiled at me. “AElius Fabius Marius often boasted to me of your grasp of logic,” he said. “It would seem he did not speak idly.”

I was astounded. “My father said that?”

“Had you not been a girl, he would have made you a lawyer.”

Of all the gifts I received that year, his words were the gift that pleased me most.

Io, Saturnalia!

Copyright © 2010 Margaret Maron

Who Knows Where It Goes

by Lawrence Block

MWA Grand Master and multiple Edgar Award winner Lawrence Block has been writing a lot of short stories this year. In addition to the following new suspense piece, which has its seed in the economic recession, he’s got stories coming up in Dark End of the Street, edited by S. J. Rozan and Jonathan Santlofer; Indian Country Noir, edited by Liz Martinez and Sarah Cortez; and Warriors, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. EQMM has another new Block story slated for March/April.

When the waitress brought him his coffee, Colliard managed a nod and a smile. He added milk but no sugar, stirred, looked out the window at the entrance to the four-story commercial building across the street. He didn’t really want the coffee, he’d had enough coffee today, and this cup wouldn’t make him any more alert than he already was. Its only discernible effect would come hours from now, when he’d want to sleep and it wouldn’t let him.

Of course, that might be difficult anyway.

Maybe he should have ordered decaf. He never did; he never even thought of it until he already had a cup of regular coffee in front of him. He’d never been able to see the point of decaf. Why drink the stuff at all if not for the caffeine? It never tasted as good as you hoped it would. Sometimes, if it was particularly good coffee, the smell was wonderful. But then you took a sip, and all you got was disappointment. And caffeine.

He picked up the spoon, stirred the coffee some more, put the spoon down. And left the cup in its saucer. It wasn’t as though he had to drink it. He’d had to order it so that he could have this table by the window, but now that she’d brought it to him he could sit here until closing time. It wasn’t as though they needed the table for another customer. The diner was mostly empty and would likely remain that way, like every place else in town. Like every other town in the country.

Hard times. Sometimes it was tough not to take it personally, to see the entire break in the economy as having been aimed specifically at him. When he got that way he forced himself to take a good look around. And it was pretty easy to see that it wasn’t just him. Everywhere he looked, businesses were failing and men and women were out of work. Corporations, absolute household names that had been around as long as he could remember, were going out of business. Banks were imploding. Retailers, from the big-box chains to the hardware store on the corner, were turning off the lights and locking the doors. As an economy move, someone had quipped, the light at the end of the tunnel had been turned off.

A matter of months ago Colliard had been sitting on top of the world, and the perch was all the sweeter for the time and effort it had taken him to get there. He’d sweated it out to get the union card — an M.B.A. from a top university. He’d lived off his savings and hit the books hard, and the degree got him his first corporate job. He worked hard, and when the headhunters came calling, he was ready to move up. He earned the promotions, he got the cash and prizes, and he bought the right house and married the right woman. He earned big bucks and lived within his income, and when the chance came along to start his own company, he jumped at it.

And made it work. And figured he had it made.

“Warm that up for you?”

It was the waitress, coffeepot in hand. He smiled, shook his head. “I’ve had too much coffee already,” he said. “But thanks.”

“Something to eat?”

He shook his head.

“That’s okay,” she said. “You sit there as long as you like. That way people look in the window, they see we’re still open. You know Sacco’s? On the next block?”

He didn’t know the neighborhood at all, but the question didn’t seem to require an answer.

“Thirty years they been there,” she said. “Good times and bad. Friend of mine’s worked there twelve years herself, and Friday afternoon the owner called them all together and told them it was the last day. Just like that. Twelve years, thirty years, just like that. How can a business just disappear, here one day and gone the next?”

He said, “‘Who knows where it goes when it’s gone.’” She looked at him, and he told her it was a line from a song. She said she’d like to hear the rest of the song, and he said that was the only line he remembered.

“Well, it’s a good one,” she said, “‘Who knows where it goes when it’s gone.’ Not me, that’s for sure.”

“I’d see your name in the papers,” Sully had said earlier. “Morton H. Colliard. What’s the H stand for?”

They’d met two days before in a diner not too different from the one he was in now, but a hundred miles away. They sat with cups of coffee in a rear booth. They knew Sully there, knew to bring him his coffee and then leave him alone.

“Henry.”

“Never knew about the H, never mind the four letters after it. Just Mort Colliard, and I couldn’t have said if it was Morton or Mortimer. Or just Mort. Means death in French, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t speak French.”

“Didn’t you have to learn it in school? Got my own hands full with English. Morton Henry Colliard. Gave me a turn the first time I saw it, and I can’t say I ever got entirely used to it. Of course, it was a good thing, a sign you were getting places, and I was happy for you.”

Was he? Sully had cool grey eyes, hard to read. Colliard had learned to take what Sully said at face value, because trying to get any deeper was a waste of time.

“But all the years I knew you,” Sully said, “the whole point was keeping your name out of the papers. So it was hard to get used to, that you were in the papers, and glad to be there. Was it a kick for you? Did you clip the stories, keep a scrapbook?”

“Not my style.”

“No, I don’t guess it would be. But people change, don’t they?”

Did they?

“Saw the wedding announcement. Fine-looking woman. Never expected you to marry, though I can’t say why not. Any kids yet?”

“One on the way.”

“Boy or girl? Or don’t you know?”

“We figured we’ll find out soon enough.”

“People need a little suspense in their lives, don’t they? You care much one way or the other, boy or girl?”

“Just so it’s a healthy baby.”

Sully nodded his approval, and Colliard wondered at the lie he’d just told. The baby, due in four months, was a boy, and why had he kept that from Sully?

“I’ll tell you,” Sully said. “I swear I couldn’t believe it when I picked up the phone and there you were on the other end of it. Never thought I’d hear your voice again, not in this world.”

What should he say to that? He couldn’t think of anything.

“Not that we parted on bad terms, but we parted, didn’t we? You moved on to a different life, and you couldn’t do that without leaving the old life behind. Be like a film I saw, young fellow from South Central L.A., he’s in a gang, Bloods or Crips, can’t remember which. You see the film?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, he’s bright, you know? Good in school. Studies hard, applies himself. And there’s this teacher who believes in him, and she fixes it so he gets a scholarship to this Ivy League college. Couldn’t tell you which one. And he goes there, and it’s culture shock, you know? He’s this street kid and his roommate is this typical preppy — you can see where this is going, can’t you?”

Like he cared.

“He adjusts to campus life. And then he goes home because his mother is dying, and he gets sucked into the gang life again, because once you’re a Jet you’re a Jet all the way.”

Wasn’t it Bloods and Crips a minute ago? Oh, right, the song. He took a moment to hear it in his mind, and when he tuned in again Sully was telling him how the kid died in the streets after all.

“He could get away, see, but he couldn’t stay away. Of course, all it was is a film. Didn’t even claim it was based on a true story, which wouldn’t make it true even if it did. Someone made it up, just to prove that a man can’t get away from his true self. But what’s a man’s true self, can you tell me that?”

“All these questions,” he said.

“Had your own company, didn’t you?”

“Until it went bust.”

“Well, this economy. No shame going broke in times like these. But you must have socked away a few bucks in the good years.”

“At first it all went back into the business.”

“How it’s done, isn’t it? And then?”

“Then it went into investments. There was this hedge fund, promised twelve percent on your money, good years and bad.”

“That’s not bad, twelve percent.”

“That’s what I thought. It’s what everybody thought.”

“This hedge fund, the player’s the one who got his name in the papers a lot lately?”

“That’s the one.”

“And you got hurt pretty bad.” It wasn’t a question, and didn’t require an answer. “You must have a nice home, though.”

“If I can keep it away from the bank.”

“They looking to foreclose?”

“Not tomorrow,” he said, “and not the day after tomorrow.”

“But the day after that? And you don’t want to forget there’s a baby on the way.”

“No.”

“The jobs in your new field—”

“The market’s dried up. There’s nothing out there for me.”

Sully nodded. “Be different when the economy turns around, I suppose.”

“I suppose.”

“And you could wait it out, but that’s not so easy since that hedge fund went south. That about sum it up?”

It was all he could do to nod.

Sully’s fingers drummed the tabletop. “I have some investments myself,” he said. “Different establishments where I’m what you’d call a silent partner. A man owes you money and can’t pay, so he takes you in as a partner. You know how it works.”

“Sure.”

“Most of them, business is off. A lunch counter, a corner deli, you wouldn’t think they’d be affected, would you? People still have to eat. Are they going to stop buying their newspaper in the morning, having a latte in the middle of the afternoon? They still have to have their beer and their cigarettes, don’t they? Yet business is off all across the board.”

“Hard times.”

“And yet,” Sully said, “the core business, my core business, remains untouched. I’m recession-proof, you might say.”

“That’s good.”

“So there’s work for you, my friend. If you really want it. If you think you can still do it.”

If he really wanted it. If he thought he could still do it.

His coffee cup was empty. Lost in reverie, he’d drunk it without realizing it. He’d been looking out the window, but had he registered what had passed through his field of vision? Maybe the man he’d been waiting for—

No, speak of the devil. There he was now.

Colliard took a bill from his wallet, put it back. Ten dollars was too much, she’d remember him. Five was more than enough.

Besides, he didn’t need to throw money around these days.

He put a five on the tabletop. Outside, the man he’d been waiting for was standing at the parking garage two doors down the street, waiting for them to bring his car down. He’d probably called ahead and wouldn’t have long to wait. Colliard, parked at the curb, would have to get moving if he didn’t want to lose him.

He stayed where he was. An attendant got out of a bright blue Subaru and held the door for Colliard’s quarry. A bill changed hands — a dollar? A five? A ten? Colliard watched as the car pulled away and was gone.

He returned the five-dollar bill to his wallet, managed to catch the waitress’s eye. He wasn’t really hungry, but he decided to order something. You had to eat, didn’t you?

If he really wanted it, if he thought he could still do it. Because, Sully had told him, people change. Even when they stay the same, they change.

“Like the film. He had to go back to South Central, you know? The Ivy League clothes and the Ivy League friends suited him well enough, but he had the street in him, and he had to go back to it.” An appraising glance. “But, see, it didn’t work for him, did it? Harvard, Princeton, wherever it was, it changed him. Was it Dartmouth? Never mind, doesn’t matter. Lost his edge, didn’t he? Lost whatever it was that keeps you alive on the street. Lost it, and that’s what got him killed. Not going back all by itself, but going back and not fitting in there anymore. That’s what got him killed.” A quick smile. “Of course, it’s only a film, isn’t it? Some story somebody made up. Wouldn’t want to read too much into it, but it’s something to think about, don’t you think?”

Colliard had never been in a street gang. They hadn’t had Bloods or Crips in the small city where he grew up, although he understood that they had them now. They’d had other gangs, ethnic in composition, raising a fair amount of hell, but Colliard had never gone near them. His family was lower middle class, just managing to hang on in a marginal suburb. Mortie Colliard was out of high school and bagging groceries at Safeway before he fell in with bad companions. The bad companions introduced him to Sully, and Sully found him things to do that paid better than bagging groceries.

“Paper or plastic, ma’am?” Life was simpler then, living in a room in his mother’s house, getting by on minimum wage. He couldn’t live like that now, but even if he could, who’d hire him? At his age?

At first, what he did for Sully wasn’t much more complex than putting boxes of Tide in grocery bags and loading them in the trunk of some lady’s Toyota. But Sully was adept at finding the right person for the job, and when he got to know Colliard he spotted something — or the absence of something. And Sully sent him across town with a man everybody called Wheezy, though Colliard never knew why. Wheezy pointed out a man behind the counter in a hardware store, and the following afternoon Colliard returned on his own to the hardware store, examined power tools until another customer finished his business and left, and then approached the counter, took out the revolver Sully had provided, and shot the man twice in the chest and, after he’d fallen, once more in the head. He wiped his prints from the gun, dropped it beside the corpse, and went home. On the way he stopped for pizza, and had three slices with pepperoni and extra cheese. Drank a large Coke. Back home he watched TV for a while and then went to bed at his usual time. Slept fine, woke up refreshed.

Nothing to it.

Back in the day, before he’d improved himself and risen in the world, before the college courses and the first corporate job, Colliard would have timed things differently. He’d have been out of the diner before his quarry appeared, and would have been within a few feet of him when the attendant brought his car down. Even as the fellow was applying the brakes, Colliard would have put the brakes on the car’s owner, drawing the .22 automatic, pulling the trigger twice, and quitting the scene before anyone knew quite what had happened.

Instead, all he did was sit there watching.

People change, don’t they? Even when they stay the same, they change.

He’d ordered a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich. It came with french fries, and he asked the waitress to make them very well done. “Crisp and brown,” she said, when she set the plate before him. “Some more coffee?”

He shook his head, told her to make it a Coke. She said they had Pepsi, and he assured her Pepsi was fine.

Like old times, he thought. Grilled cheese and bacon was close enough to pizza, and Pepsi was close enough to Coke. But shooting somebody and watching passively while he drove away, well, there was a fairly substantial difference there.

He had a fair appetite, and the food was good. The cheese had a toasty tang, the fries were the way he liked them, and if she’d simply passed off the Pepsi as Coke he’d never have known the difference.

So it was a good enough meal. And if it seemed to him that the long-ago pizza had pleased him more, well, maybe it had, but you couldn’t blame the food for that. There were other factors.

If he’d followed the guy, if he’d set out after him, then what? Maybe he’d have aborted the mission somewhere along the way, turned left when the blue Subaru turned right. Maybe he’d have been able to tail him all the way into his driveway and gun him down before he got his front door unlocked. Or maybe he’d have stuck the gun in the man’s face only to have his finger freeze on the trigger, or—

Endless scenarios. Too many ways it could go wrong, all of them possible because what was not possible was for him to know how much he had in fact changed, and whether he could still do this.

Go up to a stranger, some man who’d done Colliard no harm. Point a gun, pull a trigger, go home and wash your hands. Eat some pizza, watch TV.

He’d stayed in his seat just now because he couldn’t go ahead and write the first chapter until he could see his way through to the ending. Because if it turned out that he couldn’t do it, that he was done with that stage in life and couldn’t go back to it — well, that was not a discovery he wanted to make with a gun in his hand and his eyes locked with those of the man he was suddenly unable to kill.

All that could do was get him in trouble. With the law, if its minions showed up while he stood there, paralyzed, incapable even of fleeing the scene. Or, if he somehow got away clean, with Sully, for having put the quarry on notice, thus turning him from an easy to a hard target.

He finished his sandwich, finished his fries, finished his Pepsi. And left the waitress a very good tip, because he’d taken up a lot of her time, and because his failure wasn’t her fault. And, finally, because it didn’t matter anymore if she remembered him.

It was past nine when he got home. He’d told his wife he wouldn’t be home for dinner, but she’d made a casserole and offered to warm it up for him. They were eating out less since his business failed, and she’d surprised him by blossoming as a good cook. Nothing fancy, but good simple dishes.

She’d be a good mother, he was confident of that. That hadn’t been on his mind when he married her. He chose her because she’d be a good companion, an attractive and personable partner in social situations. And now they were going to have a baby, and she was going to be a good mother.

“We can live in a trailer,” she’d said, when the hedge fund turned out to be a Ponzi scam, when it was clear that the money was irretrievably gone. “I don’t care where we live, or how we live. We’re two people who love each other. We’ll get by.”

But of course she cared, and of course he cared, and they couldn’t swap this house for a double-wide, surrounded by the kind of neighbors who wound up flunking sobriety tests on Cops. They loved each other, but how long would they go on loving each other in a trailer park?

He said he’d have the casserole for tomorrow’s lunch. He’d had an interview, he told her, and it was promising, with a decent prospect of some case-by-case consulting work. The hours would be irregular and the work off the books, but he’d be well paid. If he got the work.

She said she’d keep her fingers crossed.

He slept late, and when he did get up she’d already left for a doctor’s appointment. He found the casserole in the refrigerator and nuked a helping in the microwave. It was spicy, and not his usual breakfast fare, but he ate it with good appetite. The coffee she’d made was still hot, and he drank two cups.

He’d slept soundly, and any dreams he’d had were gone and forgotten when he opened his eyes. But he’d gone to sleep with a question, and now the answer was miraculously there.

He got in his car, drove for an hour and a half.

The town he’d picked was one he’d been to only a handful of times, and not at all in at least ten years. At first glance, it looked the same, but then it hadn’t changed much since before he was born. It had been a mill town, and the industry moved south after the Second World War, and the local economy had settled into a permanent state of depression. There were changes over the years — strip malls thrown up, a drive-in theater torn down — but the town went on, always a decade or two behind the curve.

There was still a Main Street, and there were still shops on it, but it seemed to Colliard that there were more vacant storefronts than he remembered. A sign of the times? Or just the next phase in the continuing decline of the place?

But what did it matter? He wasn’t looking to start a business, and if he did he wouldn’t start it here. He hadn’t been here in years, and in an hour he’d be gone, and it would be more years before he returned. If he ever came back at all.

Oddly, there were places he recognized. The drugstore on the corner of Main and Edward. The sporting goods store diagonally across the street. The little shop halfway up the block — Mulleavy’s, the sign announced. He remembered the name, but had long since forgotten what it was Mulleavy sold, if he’d ever known in the first place.

Two doors down from Mulleavy’s was a hardware store. He noted it, unable to recall it from a previous visit, and he thought of another hardware store, and that made the decision for him. He circled the block, parked right in front of the hardware store. There were plenty of empty parking spaces, right there on Main Street, and that told you pretty much all you needed to know about the town, and what it was like to be in business there.

Be doing the man a favor.

He stood out front for a moment, checked out the fly-specked merchandise in the front window. The shops on either side were vacant, and the For Rent signs in their windows looked as though they’d been there forever. Colliard drew a breath, let it out, opened the door.

No customers, and no one else either, not for the moment. Then a man in his sixties, balding, round-shouldered, emerged from the back in response to the little bell that had announced Colliard’s entrance.

“Hello there,” he said brightly. “We get that rain yet?”

Were they going to talk about the weather? No, the hell with that.

Colliard drew the gun, watched the man’s eyes widen behind his glasses. He shot him three times in the chest and once behind the ear.

Wipe the gun and drop it? What, and then go looking for another one?

He put it in his pocket and left.

The first thing he did was get out of town. There’d been no one around to hear the shots, and it might be an hour before anyone entered the store. The dead man was on the floor behind the counter, where he couldn’t be seen from the street. So there was no rush to quit the scene, but Colliard wanted to be away from there all the same.

He drove well within the speed limit, knowing that a routine traffic stop was more to be feared than that someone would actually come looking for him. He had the murder weapon in his pocket, and a paraffin test would establish that he’d fired a gun recently. But they wouldn’t know that unless he found a way to call attention to himself, and this was something he’d long ago learned to avoid.

He drove for a while, and when he stopped for a cup of coffee he picked a diner quite like the one with the nice waitress and the tasty sandwich and fries. All he had was coffee, and he took his time drinking it, letting himself sink into the reality of the present moment.

He went over it all in his mind. And he tried to take his own emotional temperature, tried to determine how he felt.

As far as he could tell, he didn’t feel a thing.

No, that wasn’t entirely true. There was something he felt, something hovering on the edge of thought, visible only out of the corner of his eyes. And what was it?

Took him a moment, but he figured out what it was. It was relief.

He took out his cell phone, thought for a moment, put it back in his pocket. The diner had a pay phone, and he spent a couple of quarters and placed a call. The girl who answered put Sully on the phone, and Colliard said, “That order you placed the other day, I wanted to tell you I’ll be able to fill it tomorrow.”

“You sure of that, are you?”

“It might take an extra day.”

“A day one way or the other doesn’t matter. The question is, do you have the goods for the transaction.”

“I do.”

“It seems to me,” Sully said, “that it’s a hard question to answer ahead of the event, if you take my meaning.”

“I know it for a fact,” Colliard said. “What I did, I went and took inventory.”

“You took inventory.”

“Checked the shelves myself.”

He finished his coffee and stayed at the table long enough to make another phone call. He used his cell phone for this one, there was no reason not to, and called his own home. The first three rings went unanswered. Then his wife picked up just before the phone went to voice mail.

He asked how it went at the doctor’s office, and was pleased to learn that everything went well, that the baby’s heartbeat was strong and distinct, that all systems were go. “He said I’m going to be a perfectly wonderful mother,” she reported.

“Well, I could have told you that.”

“You sound—”

“What?”

“Better,” she said. “Stronger. More upbeat.”

“I’m going to be a perfectly wonderful father.”

“Oh, you are, you are. I’m just happy you’re in such good spirits.”

“It must have been the casserole. I had some for breakfast.”

“Not cold?”

“No, I microwaved it.”

“And it was good?”

“Better than good.”

“Not too spicy? So early in the day?”

“It got me off to a good start.”

“And it’s been a good day,” she said. “That much I can hear in your voice. Did you—”

“I got the job. Well, case by case, the way I said, but they’re going to be giving me work.”

“That’s wonderful, honey.”

“It may take awhile to get back where we were, but we’re finally pointed in the right direction again, you know?”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Damn right we will. And we’ll be able to keep the house. I know you had your heart set on a trailer, but—”

“I’ll get over it. What time will you be home? I should really get dinner started.”

“Let’s go out.”

“Really?”

“Nothing fancy,” he said. “I was thinking along the lines of pizza and a Coke.”

©2009 by Lawrence Block. Black Mask Magazine title, logo, and mask device copyright 2009 by Keith Alan Deutsch. Licensed by written permission.

A Fish Story

by Ronald Levitsky

Ronald Levitsky recently retired from a long career teaching middle school social studies. He’s putting his extra time to use returning to his writing. In the 1990s, the Chicago-area author produced six mystery novels, all published to strong reviews. (See 1994’s The Innocence That Kills, a Nate Rosen legal mystery from Scribner.) His new story for us, his first since 1989, is set in the Dominican Republic, where he once taught school.

Far in the distance, it winked under the sinking sun like a rich man’s gold tooth. Shifting carefully so as not to capsize the rowboat, Javier shaded his eyes and watched it glint again, then hold. A boat maybe, or a trick of his tired eyes. The light vanished. He remembered what his grandmother had told him as a boy. A light in the water was a ghost. Flashing once, it was an omen from the dead. But to linger as it had; that was something different. Not an omen, but an invitation.

There had been a storm out at sea. The waves continued to grow, pushing and pulling the boat like a tug toy. Javier tried adjusting his heavy body as a counterweight. A sudden gust of wind, the salt spray slapping his face, made him put down his fishing rod, grab the oars, and row for shore.

The invitation did not take long to arrive. Knocking on Javier’s door early the next morning, Rivera reported what had happened, then waited as Javier fumbled into his uniform. They stopped for coffee and those soft rolls dripping with butter at the Pasteleria de Mertha. No need to rush for the dead. Pawing at yet another grease stain on his shirt, Javier struggled to his feet, sighing almost as loudly as the chair. Ten minutes later they arrived at the pier. Slender palms swayed in the wind, and a new collection of driftwood had piled onto shore from last night’s waves.

The yacht was long and sleek. It had run aground, the front end digging like a plow deep into the sand, while the rear waddled under the lapping water. It tilted on its port side as if to offer its name, Island Girl, painted on the starboard. The kind of craft that Javier, as a boy working at the pier, had cleaned and repaired. The yacht was forty feet long, with a cabin of deeply polished oak and brass railings. The main sail had been lowered and reefed around the long boom. The jib, a smaller sail in front, had also been secured.

Rivera said, “The old Haitian Petain found the boat around seven this morning. Tied it up tight, took care of the sails, then went on board. That’s when he saw her. He ran to the station and just stood there until I opened up at eight. I thought maybe he was drunk or a little crazy, but then he took me back here and... well, you’ll see.”

Rivera had left a rickety ladder jammed against the hull. After scampering up, he helped Javier climb on board. Because of the way the yacht listed, everything was on an angle, like an amusement park’s funhouse.

Javier eyed the two sets of deep-sea tackle laid carelessly below the tiller, their lines tangled. They would probably cost a police sergeant like him a year’s salary.

The two men walked carefully on the slippery deck into the navigation station, where a sleeping bag had been unrolled onto the floor. A few T-shirts and jeans were bundled in a corner. Javier went through the pile and found an American passport belonging to a Jeffrey Cassidy, age thirty-two, with a Miami address.

They returned to the deck. A long oak cutting board lay on the port side, where a fish had recently been gutted. Scales and bones framed the board, on which rested a two-pronged fork, its handle also of oak.

A series of black scuff marks trailed along the railing for about ten feet. They started, stopped, and meandered in a crazy fashion. Javier followed the trail, when suddenly the wind kicked up and the boom swung toward him.

“Watch it, Hugo!” Rivera shouted, grabbing the boom and tying it back in place. Then he said, “The body’s below deck.”

Rivera scampered down a narrow stairway.

The boat shifted under a wave, and Javier stumbled on the stairs, tearing one of the railings from the wall and almost stepping on the body. It lay facedown on the thick blue carpet of the main salon.

“A real beauty,” Rivera said.

She had long black curly hair and cocoa-colored skin. Probably a Dominican like them. Although she was small — maybe 120 pounds — the green pullover and gray sweat pants couldn’t hide her buxom figure. She wore sneakers — one shoe red and the other black.

Javier bent on one knee and gently brushed away the woman’s hair to see her face. Rivera was right. She was beautiful, probably in her early twenties. Her eyes, almond-shaped, gave her an Asian cast.

“What do you think killed her?” Rivera asked. “Can’t see any marks or blood.”

Javier studied the girl’s body, lifted then gently lowered her head and shoulders. No marks were visible. He considered undressing her, but it seemed indecent. The coroner could do that at the mortuary.

He felt the back of her skull, which was slightly damp. “There’s a bump here on the right side.”

“You think maybe she tripped and fell — that’s how she died?”

“The bruising would be on the other side, on her forehead where she hit the floor.”

Near the woman’s head was a bunched towel, still damp. A few feet away rested a broken Champagne bottle; some liquid had pooled inside its cracked base. Javier scanned the salon. Just past the woman’s body, two plush leather chairs stood on either side of a table and, past them, a bar ran the length of the room. Scattered about were several empty rum and beer bottles, a half-dozen glasses, trays filled with cigarette butts, plates caked with fish bones and greasy potatoes.

Rivera said, “You should see the rest of the boat. What rich people do to beautiful things.”

Along a narrow hallway lay an overturned ice tray, surrounded by a puddle of water. They entered the galley, filthy with dishes piled in the sink. A large plastic bag overflowed with garbage and smelled of fish. The silverware drawer had also fallen onto the floor. The cupboard contained tins of sardines, smoked oysters, soups, and a box of crackers.

The stateroom smelled like a whorehouse — all perfume and liquor and sweat. The king-size bed hadn’t been made. More half-empty glasses on the floor; some had spilled, leaving dark stains on the carpet.

Rivera examined the one long closet. “Two sets of clothing — his and hers. Wait a minute.” He rummaged around the men’s shoes. “Two different sizes.” He looked up. “Jackets, too. Looks like this group of men’s clothing” — he pointed to several sport shirts and slacks — “is maybe two or three sizes bigger than the ones beside it.”

Javier said, “The sleeping bag up in the navigation room. There were two men along with the dead woman — one above and one below deck with her. Go through the rest of the boat and see what you can find.”

The bed creaked as Javier leaned against the headboard. A hundred-dollar bill, U.S. currency, lay half off the pillow; a fifty balanced between headboard and pillow. He stared at the money, then slipped the fifty into his pocket. Brushing his right hand against the crumpled blanket, he felt a sting. His hand had been nicked by a thin shard of glass. He carefully placed the glass in a wastebasket.

Near the wastebasket were a large satchel and a plastic bag with the logo of a shoe store in the capital. He looked through the satchel, which was filled mostly with women’s clothing. A few men’s shirts and a pair of slacks, all of which belonged to the smaller man, had been randomly stuffed among the woman’s garments.

He shook the plastic bag’s contents onto the bed. American currency rained down amid bits of broken glass. Fifties and hundreds, totaling nearly three thousand dollars. There was a Dominican driver’s license, issued in Santo Domingo, to an Esmeralda Hernandez. The photo matched the dead woman.

There were also packets of photographs dated various times during the last month and taken in places that included Santo Domingo, as well as some of the northern beaches. Most of the photos featured variations of three people — Esmeralda and two men in their mid thirties, one bigger than the other. The taller man matched the passport photo of Jeff Cassidy, but it was the other man who looked familiar. A single framed photo, its glass completely broken, showed a close-up of the dead woman hugging him. Rivera returned. “Nothing else, Hugo. My God, look at all that money!”

Javier took two one-hundred-dollar bills. He gave one to his companion and put the second into his pocket.

“But Hugo — all that money.”

“What have I always told you?”

“But—”

“Tell me.”

Rivera slowly nodded. “It’s easy to miss a loaf of bread, but nobody misses a crumb.”

Javier began to put everything back into the satchel and plastic bag.

Rivera asked, “Did you find anything else?”

“Remember a few years back in the playoffs, when Sammy Sosa struck out in the ninth inning of the last game?”

“Yeah, that pitcher had a wicked curveball, like a gate swinging shut. What was his name?”

Javier handed him the framed photograph. “Benny Cassidy.”

He watched Rivera staring wide-eyed at the photo and knew what he was thinking. This was going to be bad.

As expected, after he notified the capital of what they’d found, Javier was ordered to do nothing until a Captain Murillo arrived to take charge of the investigation. That was fine with Javier, who leaned over his desk and greedily ate the locrio, sardines, and rice his wife had dropped off for lunch. Captain Murillo was flying in within the hour, which meant no nap this afternoon. Javier pushed away the empty plate and sighed heavily. Why did the yacht have to run aground in his town?

“Hugo!” Rivera shouted before running into the station. “We found him!”

“Who?”

Rivera gestured toward the door. Cucho walked in with a sandy-haired man, tall and big-boned, his freckled skin deeply tanned. His beer belly pushed against a pair of cutoff blue jeans, and his punch-colored shirt was stained with grease and something darker — something that made Javier narrow his eyes.

The man looked dazed and walked with a limp. He leaned against the doorframe, as if he couldn’t take another step.

Beside Javier now, Rivera bent down and whispered, “It’s Benny Cassidy’s brother. Oswaldo at the gas station saw him walk by about an hour ago. He looked drunk from the way he was staggering along. Fifteen minutes later, Cucho, on his regular patrol, stopped by for a Coke. Oswaldo tells him about the gringo, so Cucho checks it out. Picks him up about another kilometer or so down the road. Guy’s just standing there swaying back and forth like a giant scarecrow in the wind. Doesn’t say nothing. Cucho calls me. I recognize him right away from the passport we found on the boat.” Rivera reached into his pants pocket. “Here’s his wallet.”

Javier examined the contents. A Miami driver’s license in the name of Jeffrey Cassidy. The equivalent of two hundred American dollars in pesos, as well as a half-dozen credit cards, only one of which was in Jeff Cassidy’s name. The others belonged to his brother Benny.

As a boy, Javier had learned English while working on the boats and at the American hotel down the beach. Knowing the language helped him a great deal in his work, especially with tourists or suspects like the man before him.

“Mr. Cassidy,” he said, “please sit down.”

Rivera crossed to where Cassidy stood and motioned him to a chair. The gringo stared vacantly for a long time, then slowly sank into it.

Rivera brought him a glass of water, which he swallowed in three gulps. He stared at Javier, then asked, “Where’s my brother?”

“Don’t you know?”

He shook his head.

“The woman, Esmeralda Hernandez — do you know how she died?”

As if slapped, Cassidy sat up straight. “My brother... where’s my brother?”

“We have not seen him. What happened?”

“I don’t know. I was sleeping... I had too much to drink and was sleeping it off.”

“When was this?”

“Yesterday afternoon. About two, I guess. Benny had caught a fish.”

Javier couldn’t help but ask, “What kind of fish?”

“I don’t know much about fishing — that’s Benny’s thing. Its head was kind of olive green with yellow sides. Had to be this big.”

He raised his hand parallel to his knee.

Javier sighed. A dorado. How he wished that just once he could fish in a boat like Cassidy’s and catch a dorado.

Jeff Cassidy continued, “Benny cleaned and cooked it. Took it into the salon. We ate a lot.”

“‘We’?”

“Me and Benny.”

“What about the woman?”

“Esme... she wasn’t hungry. Said she had a headache. She’d been up on deck sunning herself, and it got windy. Boat was really rocking, so she went into the stateroom to lie down. Like I said, I drank too much. I stretched out on the sofa in the salon and fell asleep. Slept a long time. When I woke up, it was dark. A light was on above the bar. Clock said around five a.m. I could feel we were drifting. I started to get up then... then I tripped over Esme. She was just lying there. At first I thought she was sleeping. I touched her. She was cold. I knew she was dead.”

He shook his head hard.

Javier asked, “What did you do next?”

“I just sat there for a while. I was kind of numb. Even though I knew Esme was dead, I kept waiting for her to get up. All of a sudden, there was this big jolt; I almost fell out of my seat. The boat had run aground. I started calling for Benny. Then I looked all over the boat for him, but he was gone. I got scared and jumped overboard.”

“Did you take anything with you?”

“No. Only my wallet. It was in my back pocket.”

“Why didn’t you take your passport?”

“I didn’t think of it.”

“How much cash in dollars did your brother keep on board?”

Cassidy scratched his head. “I’m not sure — a few thousand, I guess. Look, do you know where Benny is?”

“No. Do you have any idea where he could have gone?”

“Why would I be asking you if I knew? A guy just doesn’t suddenly disappear.”

“Your wallet had several credit cards belonging to your brother.”

“Benny never liked dealing with waitresses and hotel clerks. I handled that. He was used to other people doing things for him.”

“Such as?”

“You know — like if he got into a fight and messed up the place, I took care of the damages.”

“How fortunate he had you to help him.”

The gringo started to say something, then stopped.

“Mr. Cassidy, that stain on your shirt. What is it?”

“I don’t know. Probably just grease from something I ate.”

“I think it’s blood. We’ll have to examine it.”

“Okay, so maybe it’s Benny’s. Yesterday morning we threw a few punches at each other. So he bled a little on me. No big deal.”

“Is that how you scraped your knuckles?”

Cassidy rubbed his right hand over his left. “Yeah, guess so.”

“What was the fight about?”

“Nothing — I don’t remember.”

“The woman — she was very beautiful. Was she a whore you two picked up?”

“Don’t talk that way about her! Esme was something special.”

“How would you know? She was your brother’s.”

His face reddened. “I met her first. It was in a clothing store where she worked. That’s where I bought this shirt. We went out a couple times and hit it off good. But, of course, Esme wanted to meet my brother. All the girls wanted to meet Benny, the All Star.”

“She slept with him, while you slept alone in the navigation room. I understand why you felt like hitting him. He had the woman and you—”

“No, you got it all wrong. The fight wasn’t about anything. Look, we were stuck on this boat for four days out fishing. It got on both our nerves. We got into some argument — I don’t even remember what it was about. He called me an idiot, and I said something back, and he hit me, so I slugged him. That’s just the way we always play.”

“You call it playing?”

For a moment, Cassidy smiled. Then his face turned gray, and he began to sweat. “You see the way I walk, with a limp? You know how good a pitcher my brother is. Well, I was better. I was a lefty like Koufax, and they said my fastball rose just like his.” He made a sweeping motion with his left arm. “Of course, that was in college. That was before my brother and I were in a pickup game of basketball, when we both went for a rebound and Benny came down full on my knee. Doesn’t matter how fast you throw, if you got no pivot foot. You understand?”

“All these years, he is an All-Star pitcher, and you — you are his brother. You are taller, but his shadow is much bigger. Yes?”

“Like I said, that’s the way we play.”

Looking at Cassidy’s sneakers, Javier asked, “The last time you saw your brother, what was he wearing on his feet?”

“Benny always wore sandals on board. Why?”

“In the stateroom, it looked like the woman was packing.”

“We were planning to tie in at Santo Domingo the next day. Maybe Esme was getting ready.”

“Getting ready to do what? To simply go ashore with you both, or to leave your brother?”

The two men stared at each other for a long time. Finally, Javier motioned for Rivera to follow him outside.

Blinking back the sunlight, he said, “Get Cassidy something to eat. Then go over to Rosi’s store and buy him a shirt. Don’t spend too much. Take his — they’ll want to analyze the stain. And call the capital — let them know we’ve located Benny Cassidy’s brother. I’ll see you later.”

“Where are you going, Hugo?”

“Home to shave and put on a new uniform.”

Two hours later, a small parade exited the puddle jumper that landed from the capital. First two Dominicans, followed by three gringos — all in suits — and finally a police captain. Although Javier was the only one there to greet them, the officer looked past him, as if seeking someone of greater importance. Short and thin, he tapped his right hand against his thigh as if it held a riding crop. His black hair, shiny from gel, was combed straight back, which intensified the arch of his eyebrows. He had a thin moustache, like the vaqueros in the Mexican cowboy movies Javier had loved as a boy.

“I’m Captain Murillo. Are you in charge?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant Hugo Javier.”

Nodding at the tallest gringo, Murillo added, “This is Agent Wellman of the United States FBI The other two men, his colleagues, are forensic experts who will be assisting my two technicians. They will examine the body and identify any evidence. Afterwards, the body will be sent to Santo Domingo for further examination.”

The tall American stepped forward and gave Javier a firm handshake. “Hello. I’m Tom Wellman.”

He was in his mid thirties — much younger than the other two agents. Blond, broad-shouldered, and tan, he looked more like a soap opera star than a policeman. The only thing that marred his image was a slight tic in his left cheek. It disappeared when he smiled.

“Thank you for your assistance,” Wellman said, his Spanish surprisingly good. “I’m based in Miami. When we learned about the death of Miss Hernandez, and that two Americans might be involved, especially a high-profile sports figure like Benny Cassidy, we wanted to conduct an investigation as quickly as possible. Once the press gets hold of this, things can start getting out of hand.”

“No need to involve Javier in the details,” Murillo said, walking past them. “We need to go to the boat immediately.”

Javier chauffeured Murillo and Wellman, while Rivera drove the others. The captain wanted a full report. Javier described where the woman had been discovered and the subsequent search of the yacht.

“You didn’t touch anything,” Murillo said. “You know we have experts. We don’t want anything to happen like in that O. J. Simpson case. Right, Señor Wellman?”

“I’m sure Sergeant Javier is a professional.”

“And this brother of Benny Cassidy?”

Javier explained how his men had taken Jeff Cassidy into custody, then summarized the interrogation.

Murillo said, “You were told on the phone to do nothing until I arrived. I hope you haven’t put this Cassidy on his guard.” To Wellman, “You see what we’re up against with these locals.”

When they arrived at the pier, Murillo spoke to the men in Rivera’s squad car. “Wait here until Señor Wellman and I examine the crime scene. Javier, lead the way.”

Cucho, who was guarding the yacht, saluted as they approached.

Embarrassed, Javier struggled up the small ladder. He braced himself against the railing as the two men quickly followed.

“Be careful,” he warned, “the tilt — easy to slide.”

Murillo walked up and down the deck, stopping occasionally to stare at the scuff marks. As the wind kicked up, the boom rattled, straining against its ropes. Thank God Rivera had secured it earlier.

Murillo led them to the navigation room and stared at the bed roll where Jeff Cassidy had slept. Then they went downstairs.

“Was the handrail broken like this?” Murillo asked.

Javier’s face grew warm. “No, sir, I broke it when I went down to look at the body.”

“Idiot.”

Once in the salon, Javier hung back while the other two men examined Esme Hernandez’s body.

As Murillo turned the woman’s head, Javier said, “Her hair was wet when we found her. So was the towel.”

Murillo said to Wellman, “Feel the lump on the back of her head. The broken Champagne bottle over there. A wet towel by the body. Someone must have been chilling the bottle in ice, then used it as a weapon to kill the woman.”

“Certainly possible,” the American agreed.

After surveying the rest of the salon, they walked to the stateroom, Javier trailing behind.

Looking at the one-hundred-dollar bill on the pillow, Murillo asked, “That was there when you entered the stateroom?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“How much ended up in your pocket?”

“Nothing, sir. I swear.”

“Of course you do.”

Murillo checked the satchel of clothing, then reached into the plastic bag.

Javier said, “Careful, sir. There’s a broken frame inside. I put a piece of glass in the wastebasket. You might wish to examine—”

“Did you break this too, like the railing?”

“No, sir, I found it that way. The photograph—”

“Idiot,” Murillo muttered again.

All the while, Agent Wellman remained silent, jotting his observations into a notebook. He glanced at Javier, and his face broke into a tic.

They went through the rest of the yacht quickly.

After disembarking, Murillo instructed his two technicians to cooperate with the pair Wellman had brought. The woman’s body would be autopsied in Santo Domingo, where all evidence would also be analyzed.

“Now,” Murillo said, his right hand striking his thigh, “let us go see Mr. Cassidy.”

They arrived at the police station to find Cassidy sitting at Javier’s desk and drinking an El Presidente, one of the local beers. An empty beer bottle stood on the desk beside him. The gringo was wearing a cheap shirt with hula dancers, tight at the shoulders, that Rivera had bought for him.

Murillo and Wellman sat across from him, while again Javier stood behind the two men. Murillo conducted the interview, his English nearly as good as Javier’s. Cassidy concentrated on his beer, answering in grunts or a few words. He revealed nothing new.

As the interview was ending, there was a scuffling, then banging, against the door and someone cursing. The door burst open, and Rivera was pushed inside by a large woman in a heavy black dress. She stared down at them defiantly, her large breasts heaving from struggling with the policemen. The thick black curls, the almond-shaped eyes — Javier knew at once that she was the dead woman’s mother.

“What’s the meaning of this!” Murillo demanded. Yet, even he withered under the woman’s stare.

“Who did this to my daughter?!” she demanded.

“If you are the victim’s mother, my office in Santo Domingo notified you as quickly as possible as a courtesy. You have my condolences, but you have no right to interfere—”

“What happened to my daughter?”

Javier helped Rivera restrain her and, when Murillo ordered her removal, pulled the woman from the room. Once outside, Javier stroked her shoulders. Her anger avalanched into tears of grief, and soon he was rocking her in his arms.

They walked to the hearse that was preparing to go to the capital. The body was in a special bag used for victims of crime. Javier unzipped the bag to reveal Esme’s face. She seemed asleep. Her mother fell to her knees, sobbing, as Javier closed the bag.

“Would you like to ride back with your daughter?”

Muffling her sobs, the woman shook her head. “I... I couldn’t bear it.”

Javier took her to the café across the street. He made her sip an espresso and waited until she had stopped crying.

“You are very kind,” she said. “Not like most policemen.”

“I’m sorry about your daughter. Do you feel like answering a few questions?”

“Questions to help punish the bastard who murdered my child? Yes, anything to help. The gringo in the police station. Is he the one?”

“We don’t know.”

“But he is the baseball player — Benny Cassidy, the one who promised to marry my daughter.”

“We don’t know where Benny Cassidy is. That’s his brother.”

She clicked her tongue in contempt. “His brother — ‘Slave’ is what Esme called him.”

“She talked of both men?”

“No, mostly just about this man Benny. She met him about a month ago in a bar in Santo Domingo. You must understand. Esme was a good girl. A little wild sometimes, but good at heart. She took up with this baseball player. Well, what do you expect? Here’s a girl who works in a clothing store, and this big-shot gringo comes along. I tried to warn her, but she said he was different. She went with him on his yacht and called me whenever they reached a town. She kept on saying how good they got along. Then, about a week ago, she said they talked about getting married. She was so excited.”

The mother couldn’t help but smile.

“You believed her?”

The smile faded, and the woman shrugged. “Men promise women anything to get what they want. Maybe it was true. Maybe Esme just wanted to believe it was true.”

“And if it wasn’t true? If this Cassidy was only toying with her? What would your daughter have done?”

“She was my daughter. What do you think she would have done?”

Javier watched the woman’s dark eyes smolder. He had no doubt what Esme’s reaction would have been.

He said, “Jeff Cassidy says that he went out with your daughter first. That his brother took Esme away from him.”

“I don’t know about that. Like I said before, Esme called him the Slave. Said he did everything for his brother. She and Benny would make fun of him even to his face. A big man like that — she said he just took it. You think he killed my daughter?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“You find out who did it.” She took a knife from the table. “Then leave him to me. I’ll cut his heart out. Just like he did to me.”

The three men had dinner at the American resort, located a few miles outside of town, where Murillo and Wellman were staying. Murillo had only brought Javier along at the FBI agent’s request. They sat at a table under a canopy that overlooked a series of pools, water glimmering like the stones of a turquoise necklace. But Javier was concentrating on his plate. He had never been permitted to eat here as a guest and didn’t know what to choose first. The buffet had so much of everything. His left hand kept drifting to his right wrist, to stop the fork from moving so quickly. He didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Murillo, but the roast turkey was so good and the candied yams so sweet.

Murillo lit a small cigar, leaned back, and puffed contentedly while explaining his theory to the American.

“An old story, really. Benny Cassidy gets tired of the woman, tells her they’re through. He’ll drop her off at the next port. She goes crying downstairs to pack — you see the mess she made. Cassidy’s brother Jeff takes on the role of protector. The two brothers become angry, and things get out of hand. They fight over how Benny treated the woman. Jeff kills his brother — he admits to a fight — then throws the body overboard.”

“And the woman?” Wellman asked.

“What did Javier tell us about his interview with the dead woman’s mother? How Esmeralda had nothing but contempt for Jeff. What a surprise it must have been for him — after he had killed his brother for her. Maybe she cursed him, or threatened to tell the police, or maybe she tried to blackmail him. You saw the broken Champagne bottle near her body. He must have hit her with it, killing her too. Then he panicked, went over the side, and tried to run away.”

“It’s possible,” Wellman said, “but Cassidy hasn’t confessed yet, and it may be difficult to convict him just on the evidence we have.”

“Too bad it’s not the old days. When my father was an officer for Trujillo, there were ways to make a man confess quickly.” He grinned. “Of course, that was before our glorious democracy. Still, his brother’s blood is on his shirt. I’m sure we’ll find his fingerprints on the Champagne bottle as well. That will be enough. You agree?”

The FBI agent’s face betrayed a tic. “What you say is certainly possible, but I’m not convinced.”

Taking a long drag on his cigar, Murillo released the smoke slowly. He wasn’t used to being contradicted. “You have another theory?”

“A few things bother me. For example, where’s Benny’s passport? And why would Jeff leave his own passport and all that cash we found in the stateroom? He’d need the money, especially since he’d know any credit card he used would be traced.”

“As I said, he panicked after killing the woman. His only thought was to run away as quickly as possible.”

Wellman shook his head.

Murillo’s growing flush betrayed his anger. “What, then, is your theory?”

“I think Jeff Cassidy is telling the truth, that he slept through what happened. I think you’re right about Benny giving the woman her walking papers. But after packing, she decided to give him a piece of her mind. They got into a fight, and Benny killed her. The reason his passport is missing is that he took it and a pile of cash, then slipped over the side for shore. He left his brother to be caught, to clean up his mess, just like he always had. I think deep inside Jeff knows that’s what happened.”

Murillo shrugged. “Well, Señor Wellman, we shall see.”

“What do you think, Sergeant Javier?”

The spoon, balancing a dollop of chocolate pudding, was halfway to his mouth. Javier froze, feeling the way he had, years before, when his teacher asked him for the homework he hadn’t done.

“Javier’s not paid to think,” Murillo said, stubbing out his cigar. “The preliminary report from the forensic team in Santo Domingo should arrive sometime tomorrow. If it says what I think it will, we’ll take Jeff Cassidy with us to the capital. He may be more willing to tell the truth when sitting in a real jail. Javier, you can go. Inform me immediately when the report arrives. Señor Wellman, let us sit by the pool. The women’s swimwear is very becoming this season. Don’t you agree?”

The following afternoon Javier received the forensic report via fax. Skimming the pages, he couldn’t help but smile.

“What’s so funny?” Rivera asked.

“Take this right over to Captain Murillo. It will put him in a good mood, and we’ll be rid of him soon.”

“Thanks for meeting me, Sergeant.”

Javier shifted from one foot to the other while squinting through a slanting sun into the shadows under the building’s thatched roof. Wellman sat on a rickety chair at a small wooden table where Javier had often played dominos. He was drinking an El Presidente.

“Great beer you people have. Can I get you one?”

Javier sat opposite him. A folder lay open on the table. It was the forensic report.

“I didn’t call you away from your dinner, did I?”

“No, señor. I was just getting off work.”

“Then perhaps you’ll join me. I had lunch here today. The food’s not as fancy as what’s at the resort, but I like it much better. What do you call that chicken stew?”

“Sancocho.”

“Is that all right? Waiter!”

They were halfway through the meal, and their second beer, when Wellman said, “Captain Murillo wanted us to leave with the prisoner this evening, but I persuaded him to wait until tomorrow morning.”

“Why?

“Yesterday I asked you a question at dinner. Our good captain wouldn’t let you answer. I’d still like to hear that answer.”

“I had nothing to say.”

The tic moved in Wellman’s cheek. “I think you have a lot to say. You must’ve read this report before sending it over to me. What do you think?”

“No disrespect, señor, but I think I should follow orders.”

Wellman tapped the folder. “Murillo was right about the blood on Jeff Cassidy’s shirt. It matched his brother’s blood type. In a week or two, DNA testing will make it a definite match.”

“Jeff Cassidy has admitted getting into a fight with his brother.”

“The preliminary autopsy showed that the woman was hit hard in the head. She hemorrhaged badly. Fingerprints on the broken Champagne bottle matched Jeff’s. It could’ve been the murder weapon.”

Javier said, “Or just a bottle of Champagne he’d carried from the bar. I think maybe you left out the most important evidence.”

“What’s that?”

“What the woman had for dinner.”

Wellman thumbed through the file. “It was... sardines.” He stared at Javier, who returned to his plate.

They finished their meal in silence. Javier had a third beer, then a fourth. The alcohol put him into a good mood. He was happy to be soon rid of Murillo, and he liked the American.

After paying the check, Wellman said, “How about we walk this off?”

Tucking the folder under his arm, he led Javier onto a strip of road that was nothing more than beaten-down sand. They headed toward the resort, Javier a little tipsy, but after a quarter-mile the American turned toward the beach. The waning sun flared over the horizon, making the pinks and greens of the shacks even more vibrant.

Wellman narrowed his eyes against the glare. “I saw colors like this at a Gauguin exhibit once in D.C., but never in real life. I bet Gauguin would’ve liked it here. Don’t you think?”

“If he was a fisherman. Do you fish, señor?”

“No, but I’ve been thinking about learning.”

“You should. There’s nothing like it.”

“I understand it’s pretty relaxing. You need that in a job like ours. So, you don’t think Murillo’s right about the murder?”

“Captain Murillo didn’t come all the way from the capital not to arrest an American. That’s a big fish for someone like him.”

“And me?”

“Americans are always after the bigger fish — the one that got away.”

“You mean Jeff Cassidy’s brother, Benny. The All Star.”

Javier paused in front of one of the shacks. A chicken pecked at some feed near his feet. An old black woman smoking a pipe sat rocking on the porch.

“This house used to belong to Pablo Orestes. On Friday nights, after getting paid, he’d come home drunk from some bar and beat his wife Rosa. She’d run screaming down the street until one of my men would arrest Pablo. Most of Saturday he would sleep it off in jail, then we’d let him go. Next Friday night the same thing would happen. Then one Friday night nothing happened. No screaming. I remember Rivera saying that Pablo had finally found God.”

“Is that what happened?”

“In a way. After Pablo started on her as usual, Rosa grabbed a frying pan and beat him to death.”

They continued walking along the beach and down to the yacht. Wellman went first, then helped pull Javier aboard. Shadows from the mast lay across the deck like another dead body.

Javier pointed to the scuff marks on the deck. “Someone was dragging a body.”

“So you think Murillo was right about Jeff killing his brother, throwing the body overboard, then murdering Esme as well?”

“The body was Benny’s — his sandals with rubber soles would make marks like those, but look how crazy they go. This way and that. Jeff is a strong man. He would have dragged his brother in a straight line and dumped the body overboard. Besides, Esme was struck on the back side of her skull, on the right. From that angle, a right-handed man must have hit her from behind. Jeff is left-handed. He didn’t kill either one of them. I believe, like you, that he was asleep.”

Wellman shook his head. “Then who?”

“Jeff said Esme went to her room when the two brothers ate the dorado, then he went to sleep. The sardines in her stomach prove that she woke up and ate later, taking a tin from the galley. I think that she and Benny got into a fight when he told her she was crazy to think he was going to marry her. You see over there?” He nodded at the cutting board and fork. “You see what’s missing?”

Wellman stared for a few seconds, then said, “The knife.”

“A gutting knife would be long and sharp and easy for a woman to use. I think she stuck it in him, as fast as Rosa Orestes hit her husband with a frying pan. Then she struggled with his body, dragging it this way and that, until she was able to dump it overboard along with the knife.”

“Then who killed her?”

Javier rested a hand on the long boom of the mast. “It was windy that night. I was out in a boat myself and felt those waves. As she dumped the body, the boom must’ve swung over and hit her on the head. It didn’t kill her then, but it started the hemorrhage. That explains what we found downstairs. She broke the framed photograph of her with Benny — that made sense, given the way he’d treated her. So did throwing his passport overboard, to make it seem like he had run out on her.”

“Benny running out on her — that would have been too unbelievable.”

“To somebody clear-headed, but to someone in Esme’s state... Look at everything else she did.”

“You mean the way she packed.”

“Yes. Leaving money behind, and Benny’s clothes mixed in with hers. The blow to the head was making her confused. She put on one red sneaker and one black. She went to the refrigerator to get ice for her head, wrapping the ice in a towel. That’s the wet towel we found beside her head — it wasn’t from the Champagne bottle. Confused, she dropped the ice tray, still half full, in the hallway. Maybe she went into the salon to wake Jeff to get her to a doctor. Maybe she didn’t even know where she was and just stumbled downstairs and died. The hemorrhaging in her brain finally killed her.”

Wellman said, “So when Jeff woke up, he probably didn’t know what to think. He saw the dead woman and figured his brother had left him holding the bag. So he panicked and ran, just like he said he did.” Wellman shook his head. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Sergeant... Sergeant?”

Walking aft, Javier sat beside the tiller, eyed the deep-sea tackle at his feet, and sighed. He felt the weight of an imaginary rod hooking a giant dorado, fighting it alone surrounded by the ocean. He closed his eyes; the motion of the evening tide almost made him believe he was there.

Wellman’s hand was on his shoulder, and the American said, “We need to tell Captain Murillo about your theory.”

So far out into the ocean. Just him and the dorado and the sun glinting hard off the waves. He didn’t want to come back, but policemen always had to do their duty.

His eyes blinked open. “Murillo won’t believe that a local woman was the murderer. Where’s the big fish? No, señor. Besides, he’ll never admit that he was wrong and a simple sergeant was right.”

“Not such a simple sergeant.”

Javier stood and stared out at the sea. “Tell him the idea was yours. Then at least he’ll have to take it seriously.”

“I couldn’t. That’s not right.”

Perhaps it was the alcohol, but Javier finally felt free to speak his mind. “You Americans always say how much you care about what’s right. Yet you helped that bastard Trujillo rule our country for thirty years.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Not so long for someone like Murillo. You saw how he smiled while he talked about the old days when his father, working for Trujillo, used to torture innocent people. Not so long for some of us. Not so long for Esmeralda Hernandez. If your Benny Cassidy had cared so much about what was right, he wouldn’t have treated her like a whore. And she wouldn’t have killed him.”

Javier massaged his eyes. “I’m sorry, señor, I think maybe I’m a little drunk.”

“You’ve got a right to speak your mind. I still don’t feel right about taking credit for solving the case.”

“What choice do you have, if you want to see justice done? Besides, the medical examiner’s final report should confirm that Esme died from a slow hemorrhage.”

And so it did. Captain Murillo was not convinced that Esmeralda Hernandez was a murderess, but there was not enough evidence to hold Jeff Cassidy. On the day of his release, the American took the next flight to Miami. For nearly a month, the Dominican government, with technical assistance from the United States, searched the coastline for Benny Cassidy’s remains. Although the body was not recovered, the FBI closed its file on the case, giving a commendation to the agent in charge.

Six months later, Wellman took his vacation in the Dominican Republic. He invited a friend to go deep-sea fishing. And on a day when the sun glinted like flint off the ocean, he watched as Javier showed him how to reel in a dorado.

Copyright © 2010 Ronald Levitsky

The Digital Date

by Doug Allyn

An Edgar Allan Poe Award winner and the record holder in the EQMM

Readers Award competition, Doug Allyn is one of the best short story writers of his generation — and probably of all time. He is also a novelist with several critically acclaimed books in print. The latest,

The Jukebox King, was published in Europe by Payot & Rivages in November 2009. It’s the second Allyn novel published to great success overseas that is still available for first U.S. publication (editors take note!).

“Is that him?” Marcy asked. “Wait! Don’t turn. Is it him?”

“How can I tell if I can’t look?” Flo said. The two women were seated at a table in the Jury’s Inn, a busy singles bar near the Murphy Hall of Justice, downtown Detroit. A clean, well-lighted room, garnished with ferns, bustling with yuppie couples and singles cheerfully cruising for Mr. Right or Miss Right for Tonight. Clattering with cocktail chatter and pickup lines.

The tables are small, but quite tall, each seat offering a hawk’s-eye view of the crowded room. Marcy had chosen a corner table tucked behind a bank of ferns. Near the rear exit.

“Sorry, Flo, I’m jumpy as a cat. First dates are the pits. Check him out, please, but forgodsake don’t gawk.”

“I never gawk.” Flo grinned. “I’ve been known to ogle, though.” The two women were a sharp contrast. Flo dressed in Western butch, a denim jacket over a Toby Keith T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots with hammered silver toes. Her fiery red hair was cropped short as a man’s.

Marcy’s outfit was almost a uniform. Navy blue Donna Karan suit with a high neckline and a bit of lace at the throat. Flat heels. Librarian chic.

Both women were attractive, though. Big-shouldered and brash, Flo had an irresistible smile. Marcy’s oval face could have been cut for a cameo, wide blue eyes and tightly curled blond hair.

Swiveling her generous hips, Flo surveyed the room, apparently trolling. Barely taking note of the lone stag waiting at the greeter’s station.

“He’s definitely the guy in the picture,” Flo agreed, turning back to Marcy. “What’s his name? Bradley something?”

“Brad Sullivan. And?”

“He doesn’t have two heads, and the one he has isn’t half bad. He’s no Brad Pitt, but he’s not a dork either. Look for yourself. The hostess is showing him to a table.”

Marcy risked a quick glance over her shoulder, then held it a moment. “Fair to Midland,” she conceded. Medium build, tweed jacket over a golf shirt, and Dockers. Thick, dark hair shorn even shorter than Flo’s, almost military. Not handsome, exactly, but... interesting.

“Looks okay to me,” Flo said. “Still has his hair, looks like he works out. But I’m the wrong honey to ask about breeder guys. Does he pass inspection? Or do we fade out the back door?”

“No,” Marcy said, taking a deep breath, straightening her skirt. “I’ll give him a try. Do I look okay?”

“Like a freaking angel,” Flo said fondly. “I’ll wait a bit. If you need rescuing, just tug on your left earlobe.”

“Hi... Marcy?” Brad rose, offered his hand, then held a chair for her a bit clumsily, as though he didn’t do it often. “Glad you could make it.”

They ordered white wine, then fenced and fumbled through small talk for a while. They shared similar backgrounds, both from suburban Detroit, white-picket-fence childhoods, parents gone now, no family to speak of.

Brad was a mechanical assembly line analyst who traveled a lot on assignments. Marcy and Flo owned an antiques shop, Auntie Em’s, named after Marcy’s late aunt, who cosigned their start-up loan.

“And how’s business at Auntie Em’s?” he asked.

“We do all right. But if you’re hoping to marry me for my money...?”

“No need.” He smiled. “Is Flo the lady you were with when I came in?”

“You saw us?”

Brad shrugged. “I notice details for a living. I was afraid you’d take one look and split. I’m glad you decided to stay.”

“These may change your mind,” Marcy said, putting on dark horn-rimmed reading glasses to scan the menu. “I know they make me look like a geek...”

He didn’t rise to the bait. She glanced up and met his eyes. Deep brown and thoughtful.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to stare,” he said, looking away. “I’m a little rusty at conversation. I troubleshoot assembly lines, which means I work mostly with blue-collar types. We talk shop or sports, in language that would give your Auntie Em a coronary. I’m worried about slipping up, saying the wrong thing and scaring you off.”

“You’re doing fine.”

“You mean you haven’t flunked me. Yet.”

“Flunked you?” she echoed.

“You mentioned marriage to see if I’d faint dead away. When I didn’t, you put on glasses that obviously aren’t yours—”

“Why would you think that?”

“Your outfit’s expensive and very attractive. The glasses aren’t. I’d guess they’re an old pair.”

“You’d be right,” she admitted. “You’re very... perceptive.”

“That’s what they pay me for. I’m also direct, so here goes. I like you already, Marcy. You’re even prettier than your Web picture, you’re witty and also wary, which proves you’re intelligent. So, if you have any more test questions, anything the dating service missed on the forms we filled out, bring ‘em on. Don’t worry about offending me, I work with roughnecks every day.”

“My, you are direct.”

“Too much?”

“No. To be honest, I’m new to this whole digital dating thing—”

“Me, too. Please, fire away.”

“Okay, in your personal history, you mentioned your mom stayed at home?”

He nodded. “She was a housewife. Remember them?”

“Yes, but that’s not me, Brad. I’m a businesswoman and I like my work, so if you’re hoping to meet Suzy Homemaker—”

“Actually, I came here to meet a woman who might just possibly be right for me. Selected from umpty million others by the high-tech computers of a very expensive dating service.”

“And how’s the computer doing so far?”

“I don’t know much about computers,” he admitted. “But I’m going to check the Digital Dating stock price tomorrow. I think the company’s got a great future.”

He didn’t try to kiss her that first night. They did kiss on the second date, with a hunger and intensity that caught them both by surprise.

On their fourth date, they met for dinner at the Ponchartrain Hotel, then retired to a room Marcy had prepped in advance with fresh flowers and scented candles.

They made love like porcupines their first time, very carefully. Both a bit awkward and self-conscious. Yet they managed the deed in fine fashion.

Afterward, they nestled together, naked beneath the sheets, to watch a Tom Hanks DVD, sipping champagne from fluted glasses. They put the movie on pause in the middle to make love again. And again, even more urgently, while the credits were rolling at the end, screwing themselves into delicious exhaustion this time, happy as honeymooners.

But they weren’t honeymooners.

They were both worker bees with responsibilities. Brad had to fly to Minneapolis the next day on assignment. He promised to call Marcy every night he was away, and she believed him.

Until later that afternoon, in the back-room office at Auntie Em’s.

“So,” Flo said, her heavy features bluish in the glow of her computer screen. “How’s Mr. Wonderful in bed?”

“Close to perfect,” Marcy admitted, smiling at the memory as she unwrapped a parcel. “He’s trainable, too. He listens, and follows directions.”

“Wow, that’s rare in a man. Or a woman, for that matter. Does he smell?”

“What?”

“In bed, you know? Did you notice a peculiar body odor?”

“What on earth are you talking about, Flo?”

“Just saying your perfect digital date should smell kind of funky, babe. He’s been dead since nineteen seventy-three.”

“What?”

“Read it and weep, darlin’,” Flo said, swiveling the monitor toward Marcy. “I did an extended search. Bradley Joshua Sullivan, born at Ecorse Samaritan, October ninth, nineteen seventy, died in April, ninety seventy-three. Congenital heart defect. And twenty years later, your Bradley J. Sullivan applied for a Social Security card, a driver’s license, and a passport. Listing the same DOB, same hospital, same town.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Marcy said, scanning the screen. Her face was ashen.

“You’ve been burned, hon,” Flo said gently. “And not by an amateur, either. Your boyfriend’s not a married guy using a bogus credit card to cover his tracks. This is a first-class false identity. Credit history, work history, bank accounts, all entirely legit.”

“Maybe he is legit.”

“Right. And a kid with the same name and vital stats just happened to die twenty years before your guy applied for his Social Security number? That’s bull and you know it. We’re blown, Marcy.”

“You think he’s a cop?”

“I don’t know, but I’d hate to find out the hard way. We have to shut down and bail out.”

“I’m tired of running, Flo.”

“You were more tired of prison. You want to go back there?”

“No, but before I trash five years of hard work, I want to know what kind of a game this sonofabitch is running. Do you think he’s a narc?”

“If so, he’s not a local. Detroit P.D. couldn’t assemble a fake ID this elegant. More likely he’s some kind of Fed. Customs, maybe, or an FBI undercover.”

“In every sense of the word,” Marcy said grimly. “He played me like a fish, didn’t he?”

“We don’t know that,” Flo said uneasily. “Look, babe, I know you’re ticked off, but don’t flip out on me. You can’t just kill him, you know.”

“Why not? It’s a lot cheaper than running.”

“Think, Marcy. If he’s an undercover cop, they’re already onto our smuggling operation. He’s probably stringing you along to get a line on our suppliers. But if he’s not a cop, then he has to be some kind of a heavyweight to have a cover this deep. Those Russians up in Warsaw Heights have stiffed us on two deliveries. Maybe they’re making a move to squeeze us out.”

“We’ve always dealt with them through cutouts. They don’t even know who we are.”

“We tracked down Brad. Maybe the Russians found us somehow.”

“Or maybe Brad’s exactly what he says he is. The dates could be a coincidence.”

“He must be super bad in bed if you believe that crap.” Flo sighed. “Want me to call up Plymouth Correctional, tell ‘em to reserve our old cell?”

Flo flinched from Marcy’s prison-yard glare, cold enough to crack concrete.

“I made this mess,” Marcy said abruptly. “I’ll clean it up.” Popping out the bottom drawer of her Victorian roll-top desk, she took out a Walther PPK automatic, checked the magazine, then jacked a round into the chamber.

“What are you going to do?” Flo asked.

“If he’s a cop? Nothing. It’s already too late. If he’s with the Russians? I’ll cap him and leave him in an alley. They’ll get the message.”

“And if he’s a straight citizen?”

“Maybe we’ll live happily ever after in a quaint little cottage with a picket fence. But he’s not a citizen, Flo. Is he?” It wasn’t a question.

“No,” Flo said. “Probably not. Sorry, hon.”

“The hell with it,” Marcy said. “It was all a pipe dream anyway. Take a bus to Taos, Flo. Call me in three days. It’ll be settled, one way or the other.”

“Or you’ll be dead. Or in jail.”

“Don’t sweat it. Either way, I won’t rat you out.”

“Nah, I think I’ll stick. I’m too wide to hide, anyway. And we’ve worked too damn hard to run from this mutt. C’mon, I’ll help you do your hair and makeup. By the time we’re finished, you can sit next to Brad in a taxi without being made.”

Flo’s redo wasn’t quite that dramatic, but it was damned effective. A dark rinse took Marcy’s hair from blond to mousy gray. Gum pads bulged her cheeks. Heavy framed glasses and strategic padding made her dumpy and anonymous as a babushka.

She could have walked through a saloon full of drunken steelworkers without drawing a wolf whistle or a second glance.

Using a nondescript rental car, she staked out Brad’s apartment building the next morning, hoping against hope that he’d drive to the airport and take a flight to Minneapolis to analyze somebody’s assembly line.

But he didn’t. He came out at noon dressed in gray coveralls with a slouch cap pulled low. No luggage. Not even a toolbox. He climbed into a battered, anonymous pickup, got on I-75, and drove straight south to Toledo.

She had no trouble tailing him. He was in a hurry, seemed distracted. Laying well back, Marcy trailed him to a rundown apartment house in Maumee, near the river. From up the street, she watched him circle the block once on foot before ducking inside.

Hurrying to the entrance, she glimpsed him disappearing into the rattletrap elevator. No doorman, no security cameras. She waited until the elevator stopped on the fifth floor, then took the fire stairs, racing up five flights, taking the steps two at a time.

Panting, sweat-soaked, she eased the metal fire door open — and froze. Brad was walking away from her down the dimly lit hallway, checking the apartment numbers. Stopping at an apartment door, he checked both ways, then rapped sharply on the door with a short piece of iron pipe.

The door opened the width of a safety chain. She could hear the guy inside telling Brad to get lost.

No hesitation. Brad kicked in the door, trashing the guy’s face, then hammered him to the floor with the iron pipe.

The guy was screaming, “No, don’t!” Tried swinging a wild punch at Brad, a huge mistake. Casually deflecting the blow, Brad twisted the guy’s wrist, then jammed the pipe across his elbow joint, dislocating it!

“Ahhhh! God! Lady, help me, call nine-one-one!”

Brad whirled, spotting Marcy, who’d opened the fire door wider than she’d meant to. He didn’t even blink. Jerking an automatic from his coveralls, he calmly shot the screamer in the head. Twice. Point-blank. The silenced rounds barely louder than a cough.

Before she could react, Marcy found herself staring down the gun barrel into the coldest eyes she’d ever seen. He kept the gun on her as he kicked the dead man back into his apartment and pulled the door shut. Trotting to the fire door, his weapon still aimed at Marcy’s head, he thrust her back into the stairwell, closing the door behind them.

Frisking her quickly, he found her Walther, and shoved it into his pocket. “Walk down two flights,” he said quietly. “And don’t do anything sudden.”

She did exactly as ordered. His tone was flat. Lifeless. She knew she was only a heartbeat away from being as dead as the man on the fifth floor.

“Stop here. Turn around.”

She faced him, keeping her hands where he could see them. The gun was centered on her heart.

He scanned her made-over face curiously, then nodded. “You’ve got one second to tell me why you’re here. If you lie to me, you’ll die.”

“Your identity bounced. Brad Sullivan died in nineteen seventy-three. I needed to know who you are. Why did you kill that guy?”

“He saw you, you saw him. The people I work for never leave witnesses.”

“So I’m next?”

He didn’t answer, which was an answer of sorts.

“Who was he?”

Brad hesitated, then shrugged. “A degenerate gambler. Took the Bulls over the Pistons, dropped sixty grand he didn’t have. Thought a few crummy mob connections would buy him a pass. How did you crack my ID?”

“We hacked into a LEIN program that scans death certificates.”

“Are you a cop?”

“No. The shop’s a front. We run a high-end smuggling operation. Chinese speed and forged art, mostly.”

“So... there’s no Auntie Em?”

“Every single thing I told you from the first moment we met was a lie. I grew up in foster care, got pimped out at fourteen, hooked in hotels till I knifed a john who beat me. Did eight years in Plymouth Women’s Correctional. All I know about happy families and antiques I got from TV or the prison library.”

“Why the digital dating thing?” he asked. “Trolling for suckers?”

“No, that... was personal. You grow up in foster care, you dream about having a nice family. Like the Brady Bunch or something. You?”

“Not so different,” he admitted. “Ran away, got ganged up. Did some people before they did me. Turned out I’m good at it. But I always work alone, no friends, no backup—”

“—no witnesses,” she added.

He nodded. “Years go by, you get hungry for some kind of normal life. ‘Honey, I’m home.’ All that crap.”

“But instead of Susie Housewife, you got me. Tough luck.”

“Tough’s all I’ve ever had. Should’ve known it wouldn’t work.”

“Actually, it did. Sort of.”

“How do you mean?”

“Don’t you get it? We both fed the dating service the same bogus histories. Good families, Lassie Come Home childhoods. So naturally, they matched us up. A hooker and a hit man. It’d be funny. Except for the part where I get killed. Can I ask you one favor?”

“You can ask.”

“Leave Flo out of this. She’s standup, she won’t rat you out.”

Again, his silence was an answer.

“Then at least make it a clean hit, damn it! Not like that deadbeat upstairs.”

He nodded. “I can do that. Look, I’m... sorry—”

“Screw yourself, Brad, or whatever your name is. I’ll save you a seat in hell. Do what you gotta do.”

Turning to face the wall, she closed her eyes. Emptying her mind, trying not to tremble. She heard a soft click as he cocked the hammer, then felt a sudden rush of air. As the room exhaled.

When she opened her eyes, she was alone.

The Jury’s Inn on a Friday night. Bustling with the usual upscale crush of cruising singles and couples. Sheryl Crow crooning on the jukebox, barely audible in the cheerful din.

Opening her purse, Marcy made sure the .25 automatic was within easy reach, then briskly crossed the room to Brad Sullivan’s table.

“Waiting for somebody?” Marcy asked.

“Not anymore.” He rose to hold a chair for her, like the gentleman he definitely wasn’t. She sat with her purse in her lap. Open.

“What are you doing here, Sullivan?”

“Hoping to run into you. I tried the shop, your number’s disconnected.”

“We relocated.”

“There was no need to do that. Nobody knows about you.”

“Except you, you bastard. I’ve been jumping out of my skin every time a car backfires the past month, waiting for you to finish the job. And surprise, surprise, here you are.”

“I’m not here to make trouble. I’m sorry if you worried. I was a bit worried myself. Expecting a visit from the Ohio law.”

“I told you, we don’t rat. Besides, we couldn’t burn you without burning ourselves.”

“I was long gone anyway. There was some heat over the Toledo thing. I had to get out of the country. It cost me a chunk of change to straighten it out, but it’s settled now.”

“Good for you. But I’m tired of looking over my shoulder, Br — what is your damn name, anyway? It’s sure as hell not Brad.”

“It’s... just stick with Brad. I’ve been Brad awhile.”

“Fine, Brad. So straight up, Brad, are we on your hit list or not?” Beneath the table, her hand slid inside her purse.

“Chill, Marcy. You’re off the hook, I swear. If I wanted you gone, you’d still be in that stairwell.”

“Gee, that’s a comfort. Then why are you here? Meeting your next digital date?”

“No, I’m done with that. It didn’t work out too well.”

“You weren’t exactly Prince Charming yourself. So?”

“So... I came here to clear something up. But I don’t want to tick you off or hurt your feelings—”

“Hurt my feelings?” she echoed in disbelief. “Look, you two-bit thug, meeting you was the worst freaking thing that ever happened to me, so say your piece then get the hell out of my life!”

“Hell, why did I even bother?” he growled, looking away.

“I don’t know, but since you’re here, spit it out!”

“Fine! In the stairwell, with all that makeup on? You looked like crap.”

“I was supposed to look like crap! What’s your point?”

“It didn’t matter. The way you looked, I mean.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Sullivan?”

“I knew you’d lied to me, and you were made up to look like a freakin’ bag lady, and none of that made any difference. On our digital date? You put on those glasses, and said they made you look dorky?”

“I noticed you didn’t argue the point. So?”

“I’m no talker, Marcy. Can’t be, my line of work. But that time... I couldn’t say anything. You looked so fine I could hardly breathe.”

She blinked. Then leaned in, enraged, even more furious than before. “That’s a total crock! You know what I am, what I’ve done. I’m not what you came here looking for. You said so yourself.”

“I know. But laying low in Toronto, waiting for things to cool down? I did some serious thinking.”

“Hope you didn’t strain a muscle.”

“Jesus, cut me some slack, okay? What I thought was, suppose you really were Suzy Homemaker? Every minute we spent together would be a lie.”

“Every minute we spent was a lie, you moron! We lied to each other about everything.”

“But we don’t have to. Not anymore. I can ask how your day went and you can tell me the flat-ass truth. And I can do the same. Do you know how rare that is, for people like us?”

“What are you saying? What do you want from me?”

“The same thing I wanted that first night. To meet a special woman. A perfect match. Selected from umpty million others by a very expensive computer.”

“But I’m not that woman! I lied to the dating service. So did you.”

“That’s right,” he said, leaning forward, their faces only inches apart. “But if we’d both told that damn computer the absolute, swear-to-God truth about everything, it would have matched us up exactly the same way.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it again. Thinking faster than any machine. Getting it.

“Sweet Jesus,” she said softly. “You’re right. Either way, it would have put us together.”

She shook her head like a fighter shaking off a punch. And snapped her purse shut.

But before she could back away, he cupped her cheek with his hand and kissed her on the mouth. Thoroughly.

When they finally separated for air, she was smiling in spite of herself, and so was he. Grinning widely as wolves, at their own private joke.

Their long kiss drew curious glances from the other diners, who couldn’t help smiling too.

It’s such a rare thing, nowadays, to see a perfectly happy couple.

Having a perfectly wonderful time.

Copyright © 2010 Doug Allyn

The Fifth Guest

by Richard Macker

The following tale by Norway’s Reidar Thomassen, writing as Richard Macker, was originally published in Norwegian in the crime-fiction anthology I sakens anledning (Aschehoug 1997). “The story takes place,” Mr. Macker’s son told EQMM, “at a cabin much like the one my father owned in the north of Norway. Norway is a country of cabin owners; there are cabins by the sea, by lakes, and in the mountains.”

Translated from the Norwegian by Runar Fergus

The cabin had a turf roof and walls of grey stone and dark timber. It was positioned on a wooded plateau next to the inlet to a small oval lake that was caressed by the gentle June breeze. Two rowboats were drawn up on the stony beach. The birch wood was close by, leaves not yet sprung. Higher up was the mountain plateau, the glacier, and the snow-capped peaks.

Robert Odden sat against the cabin’s southern wall. He was a dark-haired, stocky man, aged forty-five. He meticulously fastened a wet fly to a thin nylon line. He put down the rod, lit his pipe, and leaned back in his chair.

His wife Linda appeared carrying a tray, which she placed on a solid wooden table in the shadow of the birch tree in the yard. She was a few years younger than her husband, with a well-maintained figure and an attractive face colored by the sun and discreet makeup.

“Do you need a hand?” he inquired.

“No, I’ll let you know when I do. Do you know what? In the kitchen I put four cups and plates on the tray without even thinking. Then I realized. But I’ll never get used to Father being gone. I often feel that he’ll reappear. That everything will be the same as this time last year.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “It’s a natural reaction. Birger will be a part of us for as long as we live. There’s Marta, by the way.”

A tall woman in green-speckled sportswear approached them from a copse. She was sixty-seven, but bore her age well. A melancholy shadow lay over the thin brown face.

“Did you go far?” her daughter asked.

“To the beacon on Stolshogda.”

“Oh. The same walk you and Father took so many times. I should have known you went there today.”

“I know. I had to. And do you know what? It was as though Birger followed me the whole way. I didn’t see him, and I didn’t hear him. Yet he was there, like a detached part of myself. Isn’t that strange?”

The daughter hugged her mother, eyes blank.

“Well, you must be tired now. Would you like to sit down? The table is set, as you can see.”

“I need to freshen up first. It’s only eleven-thirty. At twelve o’clock exactly we drink a toast to Birger, as we agreed. The guests arrive at one o’clock. If anyone turns up, that is. We can’t expect it, now that Birger is no more. But we must be prepared.”

“I’m pretty sure Arne Midtli will turn up,” said Robert Odden. “He mentioned he had made something Birger was supposed to have had.”

“Well, I never. If he turns up, his brother Erik is sure to be along, too. The more the merrier. I know they’re fond of whisky. We do have soda, Robert?”

“Don’t worry, we have everything we need.”

“Fine, I’ll be back in a moment.”

Marta Lindbo disappeared into the spacious cabin. When she reappeared fifteen minutes later, she was wearing a green skirt and yellow blouse. With her brown skin and her blond, newly brushed hair, she looked almost youthful.

“How pretty you are, Mother!” exclaimed Linda Odden.

She had also freshened up. She looked good in a green pantsuit and yellow silk blouse. Her brows above her shiny eyes were replenished with dark make-up. Robert Odden had donned a pair of black trousers, a white shirt, and a blue striped tie. He smiled self-consciously and said:

“Birger would make a fuss could he see me now. I can practically hear his voice: ‘A tie on at the cabin! That’s like wearing a swimsuit to church, dear boy!’”

The two women smiled. Marta Lindbo said:

“Yes, he would have said something like that. He always had a clever tongue. But I appreciate that you have dressed for the occasion, Robert.”

She suddenly became quiet. She sat down at the table with a hand covering her face. Robert and Linda Odden glanced at each other. She made a small gesture and he bent over to bring out a bottle of Champagne from a cooler. A few seconds later, an explosion sounded. The cork was launched high into the air. Then he poured the glasses that Linda Odden had set out. She raised her voice. It was shaking slightly.

“It’s noon. Today, on the twentieth of June, Father would have turned eighty. This was not to be, but he is with us all the same. He always will be. A toast to Father!”

The three of them lifted their glasses. Marta Lindbo’s eyes were blank. When she had drunk, she said:

“Excuse me, I can’t help being moved. But it’s so... so pointless... that Birger is no longer amongst us. Here, at this cabin that he built with his own hands. At this place, which he loved so dearly. To me, it’s just...”

She sniffled and couldn’t go on. Robert Odden started to speak, calmly and quietly.

“We are all moved today, all three of us, Marta. Both Linda and I feel exactly as you do. I believe that there always is meaning in things that appear to be meaningless. Birger disappeared on that hunting trip on the twenty-ninth of October last year. He was never found despite an exhaustive search. I don’t want to reopen old wounds, but I would just like to repeat what Birger said to me some years ago. ‘When I feel that my time has come,’ he said, ‘I would just like to disappear in the mountains up here. Return to nature, so to speak.’ And Birger’s wish was heeded. That’s why I have a strong sense that he is still amongst us. In the fresh air, in the pure water, in the wildflowers, the heather, and the birdsong in the hillsides.”

A prolonged silence followed these words. Then Marta Lindbo leaned forward and patted her son-in-law on the hand, and said quietly:

“Thank you, Robert, that was beautiful. It was just what I needed to hear today.”

“Let’s drink another toast,” said Linda Odden. “Let us be merry. For what would Father have wanted more on this day than for us to enjoy ourselves. Death is part of life. I feel that even more now. Birger is amongst us. I can see him clearly. The warm smile, the cheery glint in his eye, the quick retort. Another toast to Father.”

They lifted their glasses once more. When they had drunk, Linda Odden disappeared into the kitchen. She soon returned with a pot of coffee and a tray of smoked trout sandwiches, scrambled eggs, and finely cut vegetables.

“My, my, how delightful!” exclaimed Marta Lindbo, “you really made an effort, dear.”

“It’s the trout Birger caught in the Heivatnet Lake last summer,” said Robert Odden. “He wanted to save it for his eightieth birthday. It has been in the freezer all this time. And as you will notice, it is of excellent quality.”

Linda Odden poured coffee. They ate piously at the solid wooden table that Birger Lindbo had once built with his own hands. The sun was warm. Bright yellow flowers and grass swayed in the gentle breeze. A brownish-red butterfly fluttered across the fields.

“Memories come flowing back on days like these,” said Marta Lindbo. “I remember the night I met Birger as if it were yesterday. I was only twenty, and he was thirty-three. But I can assure you that it was love at first sight. He was so grown-up, so handsome, so sure of himself. I fell for his blue, honest eyes. And for the good strong hands. Yes, I was young back then, but love matured me. Youthful nonsense became a thing of the past.”

The conversation flowed along, almost exclusively about Birger Lindbo. If he had been present, he would have sat at his customary place at the north end of the table. Now Robert Odden was sitting there, because his mother-in-law had wanted it so.

“It’s a man’s place,” she said, “And I don’t want it be empty.”

Robert Odden had hesitated to begin with. Then he moved, with the slightly self-conscious smile that made him so boyish. Linda Odden fetched a plate of waffles and a bowl of cloudberry jam.

“The berries we picked at Bjornemyra bog last autumn,” she explained. “Father was with us. He probably picked more than his share.”

They ate in silence once more. Linda Odden poured Birger Lindbo’s favorite liqueur. Everything was well planned and stylishly executed. The mild intoxication and the warm summer breeze had put them all in an elevated, slightly emotional state.

Everything seems so right, Linda Odden thought to herself. She no longer had any sense of self-reproach. After almost eight months of varying degrees of regret and frustration she had found spiritual equilibrium. As soon as she felt a hint of a bad conscience, it was countered by a feeling of objection. Herself as a little girl, on her father’s lap. No, it was hardly incestuous. But she seemed to recall that he had felt her up a few times. And in recent years he had been difficult. A real stubborn miser. Why had he insisted on living in the huge villa when Marta preferred the Canaries during the winter and beyond? Particularly when he knew that Robert and she could use the space.

She had prepared the packed lunch that day her father and mother had set out on what was to be his final hunting trip. She knew what they would want. Egg sandwiches for her mother, whole wheat bread and salami for her father. He always preferred strong, hot coffee for his thermos, while she preferred sweet tea. A few sleeping pills in his coffee, well, that could only be construed as mischief. How he had completely vanished, she just couldn’t fathom. It had to be providence. It was only later that she contemplated the intimidating term autopsy. She hadn’t thought far ahead, but things had turned out well.

Her mother had come home in the afternoon. She had said that she didn’t have the energy to follow Birger any further, as he had wanted to hunt all the way up to the top of Vestfjellet mountain. She had brought the pack back with her. No coffee remained in the thermos. Linda Odden quickly cleaned it thoroughly. That was that. And now everything felt easy and right. Yes, it had to be providence.

“Another toast to Father,” she proposed and raised her glass once more.

“A toast to Birger.”

Marta Lindbo was also in a pleasantly animated state. This celebration was indeed a worthy celebration. She really felt that Birger was invisibly present. Birger as he was before he became so single-minded, stubborn, and difficult. Over the years there was more and more hunting and fishing, less and less time for her. More and more often she had traveled alone to their holiday retreat in the Canaries. And the inevitable had happened. She had known Jan Tydell for three years. He was a Swedish widower who owned a picturesque restaurant in a small coastal village on the south coast of Gran Canaria. He was five years her junior, and so fresh, so spontaneous, so different. His tender attention had awakened her dormant urges. Eventually they had become dependent on each other. At home in the grand villa in Norway, Birger sat with his fly-tying and his books on hunting and fishing. Unless he was at the cabin with his unavoidable hunting buddies. Or at the factory he owned. The one producing Lindbo’s Outdoor Gear. Initially it was just tents, sleeping bags and fishing equipment. Later on, there were backpacks, clothes, skis, canoes, and whatnot. The enterprise he had established had become a gold mine he was reluctant to relinquish. Over the years he had become an old, impotent man who couldn’t acknowledge that time had passed, and who watched over the family with the suspicious eye of a miser. No, why should she feel regret?

“Birger was so virtuous that I often felt unworthy of him,” she said with a shy smile.

“Mother! How could you be unworthy of him? You, of such high morals. You, who shared his interests and stood loyally by his side.”

Her daughter’s indignation touched Marta Lindbo. And so did her son-in-law’s unfailing interest in whatever she had to say. It was indeed a day of celebration. Linda had become more lively and youthful after she and Robert had moved into the villa. Now she could finally host the grand dinner parties she had always dreamed of. She was an excellent hostess, just as Marta Lindbo once had been. But Marta had felt no desire to live in the villa by herself, so she had exchanged dwellings with her daughter and son-in-law. In any case, she spent so many months of the year abroad. It was a beneficial arrangement for all parties. Robert had also shed that slightly insecure and humbled attitude once he became director at the factory. Everything was indeed harmonious.

She really wasn’t to blame for the events that had unfolded. She had told a white lie, and that was it. She had accompanied Birger on the hunting trip. Following several hours of fruitless hiking they had stopped for a break. She unpacked the delicious lunch that Linda had prepared. Then they had eaten. And drunk coffee and tea. In a short while Birger had become very tired. He must be ill, she had thought. Good God, he’s falling asleep. Here, way up in the mountains in the cold and rain. What am I to do?

Then she had the idea. Not a sudden impulse, but rather a logical and natural conclusion. There had to be a purpose to the situation. She had been given a chance that perhaps would never return. When she confirmed that he was fast asleep, she packed the lunch and removed all traces of herself. Before she left her husband, she bent over him, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Goodbye Birger, and thank you.” Then she left, sure that he wouldn’t suffer. He would sleep until death caught up with him. Perhaps he had suffered heart failure, in such a quiet and peaceful manner. Perhaps it was fate that had determined that he should die up in the mountains. And that she should be financially independent. She had taken the shortest route back to the cabin. She said that she had had to part ways with her husband, that she just didn’t have the energy to follow him up the mountain as she wasn’t as fit as she used to be.

That was it. And now she sat there in the warmth of June, youthful, well-kept, eyes blank with intoxicating drink and a torrent of memories from her long marriage.

“Excuse my sentimentality,” she said with a melancholy smile.

“You have every right to be sentimental,” exclaimed Linda.

“We are all sentimental at moments such as these,” said Robert Odden. “Mournful, too. We have every reason to be. Another toast to Birger.”

When he put down his glass, he thought that if he hadn’t acted as he did, he would still be at the foot of the table. His father-in-law would have him under surveillance with his hawkish eye, and he would append his inevitable “boy” to every second sentence directed at him. “You must understand, boy.” “You must get it into your head that it’s as I say it is, boy.” He used the same figure of speech when they spoke confidentially at the factory. The old man is unreasonably hard and difficult, Robert Odden had thought. But he had been patient and polite enough to avoid giving him a piece of his mind, as he was brought up in a home where manners were instilled in him in daily doses, much like cod liver oil.

No, he wasn’t a criminal, by any means. What had happened was chance and a chance he couldn’t let pass. His mother-in-law had returned from the walk and said that she couldn’t keep up with her husband. The hours went by, and when the old man didn’t return, he had gone out to search for him. He brought a tent and a sleeping bag, as it was late autumn and darkness would come early. He couldn’t find his father-in-law that evening. The morning after, he was up early and continued the search. He found him below the peak of Vestfjellet, lying next to an extinguished fire with his shotgun and backpack. He’s dead, was Robert’s first thought. But he soon discovered that there was some life in him, despite hypothermia and a slow pulse. It was testimony to his unique toughness. He would live to be a hundred if he had the chance.

Robert Odden had summed up his options. The old man would undoubtedly die if he was left in this condition. However, he was on a well-used path up the mountain. If he returned with news that he hadn’t found him, it would seem strange that he hadn’t looked there. In other words, his father-in-law had to be moved to a more inaccessible location. But that would also seem suspicious if he were to be found later on.

It was then the idea came to him, but at the same moment his father-in-law moved and opened his eyes. For a few fateful seconds the two men had stared each other in the eye. Then panic gripped Robert Odden, he felt that the chance of a lifetime was about to be torn from his grasp. He grabbed a rock, bent over his father-in-law, and hit him on the head so that he fell calm once more. The blow may indeed have been fatal, but this was no time for regrets. Birger Lindbo had to disappear for good.

His panic passed, and he once more felt in command of himself and capable of logical thought. He had made a huge mistake, but it was not to seal his fate. He took his father-in-law’s backpack and gun on his back. Then he lifted the frail old body over his shoulders. Robert Odden had always been as strong as an ox, and he maintained his shape through regular visits to the gym.

Nevertheless, it took him three-quarters of an hour to carry his father-in-law up to the glacier. He made numerous stops under way. He put on his special spiked shoes for glacier climbing and continued on his way with his burden, now on hard, slippery ice. Half an hour later he had arrived at a narrow, bottomless crevasse. First he got rid of the gun and the backpack, but as he was about to topple his father-in-law over the edge, he noticed signs of life — a gurgling rattle, a leg twitching. Robert Odden pulled the belt from his jacket, tied it around the wrinkled neck, and pulled it tight. Imagine regaining consciousness at the bottom of a crevasse. He shuddered. No, his father-in-law didn’t deserve it.

He shoved the limp body into the depths, and all was done. In more ways than one he felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders as he returned to where he had found his father-in-law. He carefully checked that no trace remained before picking up his own backpack and heading towards the cabin. He arrived in late afternoon, tired and despondent.

“I couldn’t find him. We need help to search for him. Give me some food and a short rest, then I’ll head down to the village to organize a search party.”

He had done everything humanly possible, and no one would doubt his genuine concern. He was a permanent fixture of the search party, but not a trace of the missing man was to be found. Torrential rain made things worse. The glacier was not searched, as it was a well-known fact that Birger Lindbo detested the cold and ice.

The days passed, and the old man remained missing, and the three remaining occupants of the cabin became closer while discussing the dreadful events.

A new year came around, a new summer. Robert Odden adjusted his position, full of well-being and pleasant thoughts.

“I have a great debt of gratitude to Birger,” he said. “He taught me everything I know about good management. He was an indispensable mentor. I hope you have no objections to my plan of having a bust made. By a renowned sculptor, obviously. The bust will have a place of honor at the factory.”

“Of course we don’t mind,” said Marta Lindbo.

“Of course not,” her daughter concurred.

They raised their glasses for another toast. Then Robert Odden set his sights on the edge of the wood down the hill.

“There come Else and Torstein Moen,” he declared.

The two women stared in the same direction, and Marta Lindbo exclaimed:

“Oh, how pleasant. You do have more trout sandwiches and waffles, don’t you, Linda?”

“Of course, I did take guests into account.”

“And I have some more Champagne hidden away,” said Robert Odden.

The retired district doctor was a short, cheerful man with grey hair and steel-rimmed glasses. His wife was blond, chubby, and almost as talkative as he was. She handed Marta Lindbo a beautiful flower arrangement, a bundle of dried wildflowers in a lacquered pine bowl. Her husband had brought a bottle of fine cognac.

“Oh, it’s just too much,” said Marta Lindbo emotionally.

She put the gifts on the table and asked the guests to be seated. Soon there was another toast, and chatter continued.

“We weren’t expecting guests today,” said Marta Lindbo with little conviction. The remark sparked mild indignation with Torstein Moen:

“You must have realized that we would come to celebrate Birger’s birthday. He was very important to both Else and myself.”

“There are two more guests,” said Linda Odden.

They all turned their heads in the same direction. Two aging men came walking up the slope.

“Arne and Erik Midtli,” said Robert Odden. “Two of Birger’s best hunting buddies.”

“Indeed, almost as good as me,” said the retired doctor humorously. “They are two spirited old bachelors. But I am afraid they will remain unmarried. Unless miracles happen, that is.”

The two brothers were slim, dark-skinned, and taciturn. Erik Midtli had brought a small bear carved from birchwood, while his brother presented Marta Lindbo with two fishing flies in a plastic case. She folded her hands.

“My goodness, you are true artists, I have always said so. And you, Arne, I owe you so much. You taught Birger everything he knew about tying flies. But no matter how hard he tried, he never became as good as you. What are these flies called?”

“One is called ‘Birger,’ and the other is called ‘Lindbo,’” said the old man. “I think they’ll do well in the lake here.”

“Such a shame that Father never had the opportunity to see these wonderful gifts,” said Linda Odden, tears in her eyes. “You are so wonderful, all of you!”

The brothers sat down at the table and the conversation picked up. It was all about the deceased. The four guests testingly glanced at the hosts occasionally, fearful of recalling sore memories.

The atmosphere lightened. Even the taciturn brothers became lively. However, the gathering never lost its sense of dignity. Not even when jokes and good hunting stories were told did the party surrender to unrestrained liveliness.

Later on, when Robert Odden and the retired district doctor stood admiring the fabulous view, Robert Odden said:

“It’s strange, but Marta, Linda, and I all feel that Birger is present.”

“Indeed, I feel the same way myself,” said Torstein Moen. “I’m not a superstitious man, but so-called animism has fascinated me for a long time. That everything has a soul is easy to believe when confronted by such beautiful natural surroundings.”

Robert Odden turned around and called for the attention of the others.

“Dear all of you. If Birger were amongst us today, you know he would have suggested a fishing trip. Well, the two boats are ready. Torstein, you use Birger’s favourite rod. And you two, Arne and Erik, can be the first to try the new flies with my rods.”

The suggestion was received enthusiastically. Everyone moved to where the two boats lay. The sun had become even warmer, the breeze had relented, and the mountains were mirrored in the still lake.

“It’s been a surprisingly mild winter,” said Torstein Moen. “I can’t recall anything like it for as far as I can remember.”

He looked towards the river that plummeted downwards and emptied into the lake, only a few feet from the boats. The water level was high, and in the eddies along the shore twigs and strangely shaped branches swirled around and around. Linda Odden was the first to arrive at the boat closest to the river mouth. Suddenly she froze in a strangely stiff posture. Then she screamed, loud and shrill.

The others ran towards her and surrounded her. Then there were more screams and shouts before a paralyzing silence arose.

In an eddy a small distance from the boat lay Birger Lindbo, floating on his back. The time beneath the ice and in the cold river had given his face a greenish-white tinge. He was otherwise strangely unaffected by his lengthy absence. His clothes were whole, the belt around his neck still tightly fastened. The apples of his eyes glowed a pale white in the afternoon sun. His right arm pointed upwards with fingers apart, as if in greeting. His mouth gaped at them.

As if to cry a silent hello.

©2009 by Richard Macker; translation ©2009 by Runar Fergus

The Jury Box

by Jon L. Breen

Once, Christmas mysteries were relatively rare, but in today’s commercially driven market we get a slew of them annually. (My own contribution is the Big Trial comedy Probable Claus [Five Star, $25.95].) Some writers have become specialists in the subgenre: Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark have collaborated on several novellas, and Steve Hockensmith has done various seasonal stories for EQMM. Another holiday specialist is longtime EQMM fixture James Powell, whose A Pocketful of Noses: Stories of One Ganelon or Another (Crippen & Landru, $42 signed limited hardcover, $17 trade paper) gathers a dozen stories from these pages about four sleuthing generations in the fictional European principality San Sebastiano. Among them is one of the most chilling and unforgettable Christmas ghost stories you’ll ever read: “Harps of Gold,” in which opposing World War I leaders want to be certain that the previous year’s unseemly fraternization with the enemy is not repeated on December 24, 1916.

*** Anne Perry: A Christmas Promise, Ballantine, $18. In each annual holiday novella, Perry focuses on a different secondary character from one of her Victorian series, in this case Gracie Phipps, thirteen years old in 1883, a few years before becoming a servant to London cop Thomas Pitt and wife Charlotte. Gracie helps a younger East End child, whose uncle, a rag-and-bone man, has died suspiciously, his donkey and cart disappeared. First-rate description and atmosphere, neat plot, and inspirational denouement mark this one of the best in the series, with one drawback: the Zane Grey method of rendering dialect phonetically makes it harder to read. It’s even more bothersome when nearly all the characters are Cockneys.

*** John Mortimer: A Rumpole Christmas, Viking, $21.95. Most of the five stories in this slim collection about barrister Horace Rumpole saw first U.S. publication in the Strand magazine. Only “Old Familiar Faces,” which appeared in Rumpole Rests His Case (2002), has previously been collected. “Slimmed-Down Christmas” is one of the purest detective puzzles in the saga. “Christmas Break,” in which a Muslim university student is accused of the murder of a professor, has some similarities to the novel Rumpole and the Reign of Terror (2006), though this time it is the unpleasant Judge Graves with whom She Who Must Be Obeyed gets chummy. With the passing of the irreplaceable Mortimer, the following may be the final in-print stats on Rumpole: sixteen volumes, including four novels and seventy-five short stories.

*** Kaitlyn Dunnett: A Wee Christmas Homicide, Kensington, $22. Liss MacCrimmon’s Scottish Emporium and a couple of other Moosetookalook, Maine, merchants are the only New England retailers that still have the holiday-hot Tiny Teddies in stock. The success of Liss’s plan to help the town’s economy with a twelve-days-of-Christmas promotion depends on the trendy toy remaining available. Mischief and murder follow in a neatly written and plotted mystery with an intriguing afterword about Scottish yuletide customs. (Dunnett is the pseudonym of historical specialist Kathy Lynn Emerson.)

*** Jeff Markowitz: It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder, Five Star, $25.95. In the third recorded case for writer’s-block-afflicted Jersey Knews [sic] magazine reporter Cassie O’Malley, a mobster is murdered in a Mall of New Jersey men’s room. Among the other characters are a heavily indebted Santa Claus, a movie-obsessed security guard, and a Woody Allen lookalike fence-cum-pawnbroker. Some of the gags are groaners — Bhait’s Motel, run by an Indian immigrant with a voluble, unseen mother; lead cop Eggs Bebedict; radio DJs Dick Joakes and Lou Spowels — but the inventive plotting, powered by outrageous coincidences, won me over.

**** John Hart: The Last Child, Minotaur, $24.95. North Carolina thirteen-year-old Johnny Merrimon and local police Detective Clyde Hunt are both obsessed with the unsolved disappearance a year before of Johnny’s twin sister Alyssa. A large cast of vivid characters inhabit an intricately constructed plot. Some of the clues are broad enough to tip a couple of the surprises, but no one is likely to anticipate them all. Prose and suspense generation are first-rate, with the only drawback a forgivable longwindedness typical of the current market. The audio version (Macmillan Audio, $39.95) is read by Scott Sowers.

**** Anne Perry: Execution Dock, Ballantine, $26. In 1860s London, William Monk, of the River Police, thinks he has the goods on vicious child pornographer Jericho Phillips, but Sir Oliver Rathbone risks his friendship with Monk and wife Hester by using all his legal wiles to get Phillips off in his Old Bailey trial. Expertly written, with effective action sequences along with legal and moral pondering, this is the best book in years in a series that had been slipping.

*** Donald E. Westlake: Get Real, Grand Central, $23.99. In what will presumably be the last comic novel about ill-starred crook John Dortmunder, whose creator died in 2008, the gang is recruited for a TV reality show and seeks an answer to the obvious problem: How do you commit a crime in full view of the public without going to jail when it’s over? Many laughs come at the expense of a dubious entertainment genre: The writers don’t write, they only suggest, obviating union membership, and when a character in one of the company’s shows makes an unexpected revelation, the producer insists, “In the world of reality, we do not have surprises.” Like his fellow MWA Grand Master Ed Hoch, Westlake was good to the very end.

*** Thomas B. Sawyer: No Place to Run, Sterling & Ross, $14.95. Claudia Lawrence, twenty-four, is snatched from her happy life, along with her parents and teenage brother, when a secret revealed by a client to her lawyer father Bill lands them all in the witness protection program. The parents are murdered, and the kids go on the run, with government agents as the enemy. However you feel about 9/11 conspiracy theories, this is a model pursuit thriller, with mystery, menace, strong characters, and cross-cutting action managed with a screenwriter’s flair. (Murder, She Wrote, of which Sawyer was head writer, was nothing like this.)

*** Aaron Elkins: Skull Duggery, Berkley, $25.95. The series about skeleton detective Gideon Oliver has been reliably combining travelogue with fair-play puzzle, leaving no meal uneaten or undescribed, for a quarter century. When Gideon travels to Mexico, where wife Julie has agreed to fill in for her cousin, who operates the family dude ranch, local law enforcement calls on Gideon’s specialized skills with bones of the long and recently dead. Not one of the best Olivers, but a solid effort.

** Janet Evanovich: Finger Lickin’ Fifteen, St. Martin’s, $27.95. The latest about New Jersey skip tracer Jennifer Plum introduces some promising mystery situations — the beheading murder of a celebrity chef and a series of robberies plaguing secondary boy-friend Ranger’s security firm — but neglects them for the usual family sitcom, slapstick, comic-strip humor, and romantic thumb twiddling. Evanovich can be very funny, but a few good lines won’t be enough to please any but the most devoted fans. Lorelei King’s reading of the audio version (Macmillan Audio, $34.95) includes some good vocal characterizations.

Copyright © 2010 Jon L. Breen

The Body in the Dunes

by Caroline Benton

Caroline Benton was raised in Somerset, England, and her first novel, The Path of the Dead (published in 2006 by Constable in the U.K. and Carroll & Graf in the U.S.), was set in Devon. For more than a decade now she has lived in France, where she converted a haunted watermill that she runs as a holiday home. In her fictional work, however, she repeatedly returns to England, as in this new story for EQMM. We’ve got two more of her suspenseful tales already lined up for coming issues.

I always wondered what it would be like to find a body. Whenever I was out walking the dog, up on the wild cliff-top path or in the endless expanse of dunes, sooner or later the thought would pop into my head: Suppose Alice suddenly rushes ahead barking, and when I go to see what the fuss is about I find human remains?

Not that I wanted to find one — I was just aware it could happen. You hear about it on the news, dog walkers and ramblers stumbling over bodies in isolated places, and it doesn’t get much more isolated than it is around here. Oh, not in summer, in summer it’s heaving, but in winter, when the tourists and second-homers are gone, it’s a virtual wasteland. I could think of a dozen places to dump a body where it might not be found for months — if at all.

My husband thought I was crazy, of course. “Oh, give it a rest!” he complained, one of the few times he accompanied me. “When was the last time a body was found around here?”

“Nineteen sixty-three,” I told him. “A woman’s battered body was found in the dunes.”

“Trust you to know that,” he muttered. “Anyway, that’s nearly fifty years ago. You’ve about as much chance of finding a body as you have of winning the lottery.”

He was probably right, though that didn’t stop me thinking about it.

“Trouble with you, you watch too much television,” he would say, and he was possibly right about that, too. Dalziel and Pascoe, Wire in the Blood, Inspector Lynley — you name it, I watch it. And Crimewatch, of course — mustn’t forget the real stuff. “Bet you wished you lived there!” he once sneered when I was glued to Midsomer Murders. “You’d be tripping over corpses every time you went out.”

With any luck, yours, I thought, though I didn’t dare say it. He wouldn’t have seen the funny side, and his temper was fearful when aroused.

But I wasn’t joking, not entirely. Our marriage had long been one of convenience only. I did all the washing, cleaning, and cooking, while Derek... well, let’s just say he found his pleasure elsewhere. His current dalliance was Donna, a leggy blond secretary twenty years his junior, the latest in a string of leggy blond women stretching back ten years. Possibly longer, but it was ten years since I first became suspicious.

Needless to say, Derek denied everything. He accused me of being neurotic, over-possessive, unnaturally suspicious, and a host of other things I prefer not to repeat. And sometimes it became more personal. “Would you blame me if I did?” he would yell. “Just look at yourself! What happened to the attractive woman I married?”

“She got older!” I would say. “Just as you have.”

“Yeah, well at least I’ve made an effort and looked after myself.”

Which was true — he had. He was still a dauntingly handsome man. Though it had come at a price. Oh, he liked nice things, did Derek — designer clothes, expensive cars, gold-card membership at the gym... It was no wonder there was never anything left in the bank.

But it was unfair to imply I’d let myself go. My hair was nicely trimmed (the few white ones hidden by a blond rinse), and if I wasn’t quite as slim as when we met, I was by no means fat; the dog-walking saw to that. And I would have bought pretty clothes if I had anywhere to wear them.

In the early days, of course, I had no proof. He was far too careful covering his tracks. But as time went on he became more careless, and occasionally, when doing his washing, I’d notice a smear of makeup on a shirt or get a waft of alien perfume. (I could often tell when he changed models by the sudden change of scent.) But by then I’d given up confronting him. Instead I kept notes (sometimes names, often just perfumes), and my diaries were full of cryptic entries, things like, Eternity (Ha!) July-Nov 2003. The motel receipt I found in his jacket pocket I stored carefully away in a box.

Over the years I built up quite a collection. Nothing that would stand up in court, perhaps, though I hoped it would make him think twice about asking for a divorce.

Oh, I thought about leaving, of course I did. But then I would think, Why should I? I wasn’t the one who was playing around. Besides, property in the area had gone through the roof and I knew if I left I would have to move elsewhere. So I decided to stay and make the most of what I had — my house and garden, walks with Alice, the television and books for escape. And, of course, my job, something else I would be forced to give up if I moved away.

Not that it’s anything glamorous. I look after other people’s holiday cottages — keeping an eye on them in winter, turning on heating and hot water before the owners arrive, buying in provisions, and cleaning before and after their stay. But it’s not demanding work (I’ve never minded housework), and I enjoy meeting the people when they come down. Also I can choose my own hours — except when the owners decide on a last-minute visit, as the Ricardos did in February last year.

“They’re forecasting a good weekend,” Mrs. Ricardo said when she phoned on the Friday lunchtime. “So we’re leaving after work and should arrive about ten. Think you can do the honours before then?”

“I’ll go straight round now,” I told her. “Get some heat into the place. Is there anything you’d like me to buy in?”

Milk and fresh bread, she said, the rest they’d bring with them, so I stopped off at the shops on my way there.

A few of my properties are within walking distance, but not the Ricardos’. It’s a couple of miles as the crow flies nearer the mouth of the estuary, but it’s at least six miles by road. Not far from the Sandybanks Motel, as it happens, whose receipt still lay in the box in my wardrobe. You could see part of it beyond the mud flats from the Ricardos’ bedroom window.

The cottage was like an icebox when I let myself in, but a couple of blow-heaters going full blast soon removed the chill. I switched on the wall heaters, turned on the hot water and fridge, and started on the cleaning. There wasn’t much to do, it was much as I had left it after their last visit, and within half an hour everything was spick and span, so I left my usual note saying have a good stay and let myself out again.

The Ricardos had been right about the weather. It was a glorious afternoon, pale winter sunshine shining from a clear blue sky, and the air was crystal clear. Perfect for bird-watching.

It was Mr. Ricardo who was keen on birds. Actually, he was a fanatic. His special interest was shorebirds, which is why they’d bought the cottage. “Does your husband like birds?” he asked the first time I met him. “Not particularly,” I said — at least not the kind he meant. But it made me think about how little I knew myself, and next day I rooted out an ancient pair of binoculars and started taking them on my walks.

When Mr. Ricardo found out what I was doing, he gave me a booklet, with pictures of all the birds I might see — things I’d never heard of, like greenshanks, and knots, and bar-tailed godwits. To this day I still can’t identify most of them, so many look alike, but I do enjoy watching them skimming over the water and poking around in the mud. I even bought a camera with a telephoto lens, and over the months managed some quite respectable shots. My photo of an avocet, Mr. Ricardo said, was worthy of a magazine.

Anyway, that’s how I came to be walking in that part of the dunes after finishing at the cottage, wrapped in my woolly hat and duffel coat, binoculars and camera strung round my neck.

I was on my way back, watching a flock of lapwings through the binoculars, when they suddenly took off and soared overhead. For a moment I lost sight of them and, panning around, I found myself staring straight at the motel. The car park was almost empty but at that moment a red car pulled in, and it flashed through my mind that it looked like Derek’s. Then the driver climbed out and I caught my breath.

He was too far away to see any detail, but I felt sure it was Derek — something about the shape and the way he moved. Even more so when the door of another car opened and a blond woman climbed out. The couple embraced for a moment then, arms entwined, headed towards the entrance.

My heart was racing. Was it my husband? All these years, I thought, and he still has the power to hurt. But within seconds the sadness turned to anger, and before I knew it I was hurrying back to my car.

I made it to the motel within half an hour and parked out of sight in a side lane. The dunes ran almost to the car park so it was easy to find a good vantage point, lying on the sand behind a clump of grass. During the journey I’d managed to calm down, and I felt more like a private eye than a vengeful wife as I adjusted the telephoto. I prayed they would come out before darkness fell.

When the sun disappeared I thought luck was against me, but a moment later the doors opened and the couple emerged. It was Derek, his arm around the woman I now know as Donna, and by the time they climbed into their respective cars I had a dozen compromising shots.

The photos came out perfectly — which was just as well, because a few weeks later Derek walked out. Donna had left her husband, he told me, and they would be temporarily renting a flat until we could sell the house.

“What house?” I asked.

“This one, of course,” he snapped. “You don’t think you’ll be staying on here, do you?”

Actually I did — and so did my solicitor when he saw my collection.

Derek went mental when he discovered what I’d been doing. He always had a foul temper and now I was seeing it full force. On the solicitor’s advice, I changed the locks, but he still kept coming round, standing outside and yelling abuse. When he turned up one night and kicked the door in I phoned the police, and the following day my solicitor applied for a restraining order.

A couple of days later there was a knock on my door. Not again, I thought. But it wasn’t Derek. It was a man I’d never seem before — mid thirties, average build, fair hair already receding. He introduced himself as Donna’s husband.

He was clearly distraught, so I invited him in, and he immediately began to speculate on ways to retrieve our partners.

“What makes you think I want mine back?” I asked bluntly, and his face fell. He knew straightaway there was no point hanging around.

“They’re talking of moving to London,” he said gloomily as I saw him back out.

“They can go to the moon, for all I care,” I said, and closed the door.

Afterwards I wondered if I’d been a little harsh... but at least I’d been honest. What was the point in giving him false hope?

We never went to court. The solicitors reached an agreement whereby I kept the house in lieu of maintenance, but as I neither wanted nor expected any, that was fine by me. All I wanted was Derek out of my life. And my decree nisi, of course. I couldn’t understand why it was taking so long.

I worried at first how I would cope without him, but financially I’ve managed extremely well. I took on a few more holiday homes to supplement my income. People are desperate for someone reliable to look after their second homes.

Other than that, life carried on as normal. I continued to watch crime dramas on television, sometimes watched birds on the estuary, and daily went on long walks with Alice, occasionally on the cliff path but mostly on the beach or dunes. Still on the alert in case I found a body, though I never really expected to find one.

But then, one bitterly cold Saturday in January, I did. And it was nothing like I’d imagined.

I’m not sure what I’d expected a body to look like. Dead, I suppose. Possibly decomposed. Certainly unpleasant. But the man in the leather jacket looked as if he was asleep. He was lying on his side, legs bent, one arm across his chest, the other thrown out to the side, and I might have been tempted to shake him had it not been for the weather. No one could survive such temperatures in so few clothes.

But it wasn’t his appearance that caused the greatest shock. Not once, in all the years, had I expected to recognise the victim. But I recognised this man — it was Donna’s husband.

I almost hadn’t gone for a walk that morning. It had been blowing a gale during the night, with temperatures well below freezing, and although the wind was lighter, it was still icy cold. But Alice kept scratching at the door and whining, and eventually I put on my warmest coat and set off.

We started off on the beach, but what wind there was still cut like a knife, and after a while I gave up and sought shelter in the dunes.

Alice loves days like that and was rushing around like a mad thing, but after we’d been walking for about half an hour she stopped abruptly on top of a ridge, sniffed the air, and took off down the other side.

I thought nothing of it and carried on, assuming she would come back when she was ready. But when she hadn’t appeared after several minutes I became worried and set off in pursuit.

I found her, tail wagging furiously, pawing at something behind a dune. Probably the remains of someone’s picnic, I thought, left over from summer — or a dead seabird, in which case I would drag her away quickly before she rolled in it and I had to bathe her when we got home. And then I saw the arm.

Yet even then I didn’t twig. After a lifetime of anticipating finding a body, when I finally found one I assumed it was a log. It wasn’t until I moved closer that I realised the log was made of leather, and the pale bit at the end was a hand.

I grabbed Alice’s collar and dragged her away, then returned to look more closely, and almost had a heart attack when I realised who it was. But what on earth had Donna’s husband been doing in the dunes?

He wasn’t dressed for walking, that was for sure. Beneath the leather jacket I could see a blue shirt and thin woollen jersey; on his lower half, fawn trousers and everyday tan leather shoes. I looked around for footprints, to see which way he might have come, but all I could see were mine and Alice’s. Any earlier ones had been obliterated by the previous night’s wind.

It was then I noticed the empty whisky bottle poking from under his jacket. Was that why he had come, to get drunk?

Slowly the likely truth dawned on me. He had come there to end his own life. He had chosen a place where he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed, and drunk himself into a stupor, knowing he wouldn’t wake up. Life without Donna must have been more than he could bear.

“Poor man,” I murmured, realising I didn’t even know his name. My dear husband had a lot to answer for.

I moved away from the body and groped in my pocket for my mobile, only to discover I’d left it at home. I would have to wait till I got back to call the police.

I arrived to find a strange car parked outside, but as I approached, Derek climbed out. He looked terrible, with dark shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept. Someone was in the passenger seat, though I couldn’t see who.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“My things,” he said sharply. “I’ve still got stuff here, in case you haven’t noticed. Stuff I hadn’t collected when you changed the locks.”

“They’re not here,” I said.

“No?” He turned towards the house.

“You’ve no longer any rights here,” I cried, coming between him and the door. “We reached an agreement, remember?”

“Oh, I remember. Thanks to that nerd of a local solicitor. Well, I’ve a different one now, a City one, and she’s advised me to go to court. With no children to provide a home for, she’s little doubt I can force a sale. Especially as I was the major breadwinner—”

“Get out!” I screamed. “Get away from here or I’ll call the police.”

“Not until I have my things!”

“They’re not here!” I cried. “I took everything of yours to the charity shop.”

His face turned thunderous. “There were three Ralph Lauren shirts in there!”

“Well, I hope they got a good price for them!”

I thought for a moment that he was going to hit me, but finally he swung round and marched back to the car. “And there’s me thinking I’d be lenient and let you have half,” he yelled over his shoulder. “Well, not anymore! I suggest you get some boxes next time you’re at the supermarket. You’ll need them for packing!”

I turned my back and struggled to unlock the door, but I was shaking too much to fit the key in the lock. Finally I managed it and slammed the door behind me, and leaned back against it until I heard them screech away. My heart was pounding: His anger seemed out of all proportion to what I’d done. For years he’d made my life a misery, and now he was worried about three pathetic shirts!

I went to the lounge and poured myself a brandy, his cruel words echoing in my head. No kids to provide a home for... well, whose fault was that? He was the one who never wanted children. Oh, he’d never come right out and said it, not in so many words; it just never happened to be the right time. “When we get a place of our own,” was his excuse when we were in the rented flat, and when we bought one, “Let’s wait till we get a house and garden.” But when we got the house he claimed the mortgage payments were too high and we couldn’t afford a family until he got promotion. And by the time he did...

I shivered. By the time he did he was having an affair (Opium, June 98-March 99), and it was I who shunned having children. I didn’t want to bring a baby into an unstable home.

Gulping back the brandy, it crossed my mind, I wonder if Donna wants children?

And suddenly I remembered the body. How could I have forgotten something so monumentally important?

As I dashed to the phone I wondered, Does Donna know her husband’s dead?

But of course she didn’t know! How could she? Nobody knew he was dead except me...

And that’s when the idea came to me — an idea so fiendish it almost took my breath away. I had it in my power to set Derek up. With barely any effort on my part, I could make the suicide look like murder — and Derek the main suspect.

I felt myself shiver. Oh, it was fiendish all right. I knew the ruse wouldn’t last long, they’d soon discover Donna’s husband had taken his own life, but it might make Derek squirm for a few days. And why shouldn’t he, after all he’d done?

I ran through the plan again, searching for flaws. Surely it couldn’t be that easy...

But it was — frighteningly easy. It was all but foolproof provided I kept my head...

Minutes later, I was on my knees in the kitchen, dragging my cleaning kit from under the sink. I took a new pair of rubber gloves from the packet (the thin white kind they say surgeons use), pulled them on, and ran upstairs to the bedroom.

I hadn’t been lying about getting rid of Derek’s things. I’d got rid of every item bar one — the box in the bedroom where he’d thrown his loose change and any other odd bits and pieces he hadn’t known what to do with, or was too lazy to throw away. It was the one thing I’d never got round to sorting.

I found it in the back of a drawer and began to poke through. In it I found cufflinks (when had Derek last worn cufflinks?), old petrol receipts, a screwdriver, a half-used tube of insect repellent, a packet of mints... and the thing I’d been looking for, Derek’s expired credit card. I remembered him cutting it in half shortly before he left.

Taking care to hold them by the edges, I picked up the halves and carried them downstairs. The part with his name on I dropped into a polythene bag. The other I chopped into pieces, mixed with some old dog food, and chucked in the bin.

Alice leapt around like a maniac when I put my coat on for the second time. Another walk? I could see her thinking.

“It’s your lucky day,” I said as I let her out the door, and thought, let’s hope it’s mine, too.

Finding the body, I knew, would be like finding a needle in a haystack. One dune looks much like another, and when you’ve got a few miles of the things it’s not easy to retrace your steps. An hour later I was beginning to panic. But suddenly Alice did her sniffing thing again, let out a whine, and took off over the sand.

“Good girl,” I said, when I found her sniffing around the body. I made her sit, then climbed to the top of the dune. Far off along the beach two people were walking a dog, and a fitness-freak in shorts was jogging along the tideline. Other than that the place seemed deserted. I waited a minute just to make sure, then returned to the body and took the bag from my pocket.

“This gives a whole new meaning to credit-card fraud,” I told Donna’s husband as I shook out the piece of plastic, and hoped, wherever he was, he would approve.

The card landed beneath some marram grass a few feet above his head, and I tapped it into the sand so it didn’t get blown away. Only a small corner was left showing but I knew the forensic team would find it. In the next few hours they would be sifting the entire area in their search for clues.

I glanced around to make sure no one had seen me. I was shaking like a leaf, and not only from cold. But the next minute I was smiling. A piece of Derek’s credit card found next to the body of his ladyfriend’s husband. Yes, that should make life pretty intolerable for him for the next couple of days.

I pulled out my mobile phone — I’d remembered to bring it this time — took a deep breath, and tapped out 999.

It seemed like an eternity before the police arrived. I waved from the top of a dune to show them where to come. It was just two at first, in uniform, but as soon as they saw the body they radioed for assistance.

The older officer took my name and address. “Do you often walk the dog here?” he asked.

“Most days,” I said, my teeth chattering. “It was the dog who found him. If she hadn’t made a fuss I would have passed straight by.”

“Did you see anyone else on the walk?” he wanted to know, and I mentioned the people on the beach. He scribbled it all down, then nodded at the body. “Ever seen him before?”

I hesitated. I hadn’t expected to be asked that so soon. “Actually, I think I have,” I said. “I think he once came to my house.”

“Do you know his name?”

I shook my head. “He just said he was Donna’s husband.”

“Donna...” He wrote the name carefully. “She a friend of yours?”

“Hardly,” I said. “She’s the woman who ran off with my husband.”

The officer stopped writing and met my eyes. “Does she have a surname?”

“Chant,” I said. “Donna Chant. Soon to be Donna Lester.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Lester,” he said, and went off to radio in the good news.

Finally I was allowed to go, but I knew it wasn’t over. A couple of hours later two plainclothes officers arrived at my house. I suppose I’d been expecting a Chief Inspector Barnaby, accompanied by his good-looking sergeant, so was somewhat disappointed when I opened the door. Detective Inspector Conlan was short and overweight, with a face like a retired boxer, and Detective Constable Thorpe had a serious problem with spots. But at least the inspector had kindly eyes.

“I understand you knew the deceased,” he said, making himself comfortable on the settee. “Can you tell me how you met?”

“Is it Donna’s husband?” I asked.

“We believe so.”

“Poor man,” I sighed. “He turned up here shortly after his wife ran off with my husband. He wanted my help in finding a way to get them back. But he didn’t stay long. I don’t think I gave the answer he was looking for.”

“You didn’t want your husband back?”

I shook my head. “His wife wasn’t the first by a long way.”

“I see.” He glanced at his constable, who was writing it all down. “And how did Mr. Chant seem?”

“Devastated. Like the bottom had fallen out of his world.”

“Angry?”

“Not then. I think he was still in shock.”

“And have you any idea why he was in the dunes?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been asking myself that ever since I found him.”

“Might he have been coming to see you?”

“Not from that direction.”

“Maybe he came, found you out, and went for a walk,” he suggested.

“It’s possible, I suppose... It rather depends when he died.”

“We think during the night.”

“In which case, no. I was here from about four o’clock onwards. Besides, Alice always barks if someone comes to the door.”

“I noticed.” Inspector Conlan smiled. “So where are your husband and Mrs. Chant living?”

“London, I think.” I saw him raise his brows. “Our separation wasn’t exactly amicable, Inspector, and all correspondence is done through solicitors.” I turned to DC Thorpe. “Mine is John Wardle at Wardle and Stott. I’m sure he can give you an address.”

“And when did you last see your husband?” Conlan asked.

“Strangely enough, this morning. We’d been for a walk on the dunes — me and Alice, that is — and when I came back he was waiting outside. Or should I say they — there was someone else in the car, I assume Donna. But he was the only one I spoke to. It was quite a shock, seeing him again.”

“You hadn’t seen him for a while?”

“Not since the restraining order.”

The detectives exchanged glances. “Do I take it from that that your husband was violent, Mrs. Lester?”

I hesitated. It was beginning to dawn on me what a black picture I was painting. But nothing I was telling them wasn’t true.

“Not violent,” I said. “Though he could be abusive. One night he kicked the door in and — well, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“Indeed. So did he say why he was calling?”

“To collect some things. I, er, told him I’d taken them to the charity shop.”

“How did he react to that?”

I gave a sarcastic laugh. “Not well. He told me I ought to start packing.”

“I’m sorry?”

I explained about the agreement and Derek’s threat of a court case to force a sale. “That’s why I went for another walk, Inspector. I don’t usually have two long walks in a day, but his visit upset me. It’s the best thing I know to calm me down.”

“Except this time you found a body.”

I nodded. “Quite a coincidence, really, considering who it was.”

“Indeed,” he said again.

“I don’t suppose your husband mentioned if he’d seen Edward Chant?” Thorpe suddenly asked.

“Edward?” So that was his name. “No, he didn’t.”

“Very well, Mrs. Lester, I think that’s all for now.” Conlan climbed to his feet. “Many thanks for your help.”

“Are you treating it as suicide?” I asked, as I showed them out.

“Why d’you ask that?”

“I noticed the empty whisky bottle. And I know what state he was in after Donna left.”

Conlan smiled. “I dare say we’ll know on Monday after the postmortem. Oh, one last thing... Assuming your husband’s still in the area, any idea where he might be staying?”

“None,” I said. “Although... It’s just a hunch, but you could try the Sandybanks Motel.”

“Old stomping ground?”

“Something like that,” I said, and closed the door.

That evening I was on tenterhooks. There was nothing on television to distract me, not even an old rerun of Morse, though I doubt I’d have been able to concentrate even if there had been. I was too concerned with how things were progressing. Had the crime team found the credit card? Had the police found my husband? Might they even now be giving him the third degree?

I hoped so. Let him sweat for a bit, as they say. I knew it wouldn’t be for long, he was bound to have an alibi, Donna would vouch for him if no one else. Besides, for all I knew he was in London the night before, popping up all over the place on CCTV, though it might take awhile to trawl through the footage.

I listened to the late-night local news but it told me nothing I didn’t know, only that a man’s body had been found in the dunes, cause of death unknown. They gave the same account next morning, and it wasn’t until lunchtime that they revealed his name. Edward Chant, I discovered, had been thirty-six and a surveyor for the local council.

I half expected the police to get in touch again, or even Derek, and jumped every time the telephone rang. But the only calls were from reporters wanting to ask about the body, and eventually I took the phone off the hook and settled in front of the TV.

Last thing before bed I took out the rubbish, thanking my lucky stars it would be collected next day. Somewhere amongst it was the other half of the credit card, and I would feel a whole lot happier when it had been carted away.

First thing on Monday I called my solicitor to tell him about Derek’s threat. But he already knew. A letter had arrived that morning from the new firm in London.

“Can he really force a sale?” I asked.

“They’re a high-powered bunch,” John Wardle conceded. “Reckon he might have to sell to pay their fees.” He laughed at his own joke, though I didn’t find it funny. “Anyway, leave it with me. We won’t give up without a fight.”

Give up? I was beginning to see what Derek meant about local solicitors.

“Incidentally,” he added, “I had a visit from the police. They were asking about your agreement. You do know it was Mrs. Chant’s husband who was found in the dunes?”

“I should do,” I said. “I found the body.”

“Really? Oh dear, oh dear. You don’t think there’s anything suspicious, do you?”

“Probably just routine,” I said, and put down the phone.

I waited until after lunch to take Alice for her walk (up on the cliff, well away from the dunes), and hadn’t long been back when the detectives returned.

“You were right about the Sandybanks Motel,” Inspector Conlan said, when we were seated around the table. “Your husband and Mrs. Chant booked in Friday evening.”

“They did?” So they hadn’t been in London.

“We’ve also found Edward Chant’s car. It was in the motel car park.”

That made me sit up. “He must have known they were coming,” I said. “I suppose he went there to plead with Donna to come back. I take it she refused?”

Conlan nodded.

“Well, at least it explains why he chose the dunes.”

“To take his own life, you mean?” He pursed his lips. “That’s assuming it was suicide. Frankly I’m not convinced.”

“But the postmortem...”

“Confirmed the victim had a lot of alcohol in his bloodstream. But also benzodiazepine — that’s antidepressant to you and me. Taken together, enough to make him pass out.”

“Sounds like he wanted to make sure,” I said, but he made no comment.

“Did you know the Chant house was still in joint names?” Constable Thorpe asked suddenly.

I shook my head. “Though it doesn’t surprise me.”

“Or that his wife was still his sole beneficiary?”

“He was obviously still hoping to get her back.”

“And what if I told you Edward Chant had recently inherited close on a million pounds?”

I almost choked. “A million? When?”

“A few weeks ago.”

I spun round to Conlan. “Did his wife know?”

“Oh, she knew all right!” He glanced towards the window as a refuse truck pulled up outside. “Chant would have been on the phone the minute he heard, dangling it like a carrot. Trouble is, I think Donna wanted to have her cake and eat it. His money, your husband.”

“I’m not sure what you mean...?”

“I mean, Mrs. Lester, that we’re treating the death as suspicious. And your husband is helping us with our enquiries.”

Something cold ran down my spine. The implications were obvious. Donna stood to inherit, she and Derek arrive on the scene, Chant winds up dead — the perfect motive. And inadvertently I had provided the evidence to make it stick. But surely I couldn’t be married to a murderer?

Suddenly I remembered Derek’s face when he’d come to the house. The unexplained anger, the shadows under his eyes...

My shock must have shown because next minute Conlan was sending Thorpe to fetch a glass of water. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Lester,” I heard him say.

“But it must have been suicide,” I said. “My husband couldn’t carry a body that far into the dunes.”

“He could if he had help.” Conlan shot another look at the window as the truck began to guzzle the contents of my wheely-bin.

“Have you spoken to him?” I asked quickly.

He nodded. “He claims they came down to collect some things, from here and from Chant’s place, and Chant turned up later at the motel, half drunk, begging her to come back. When she refused he stormed out, and that was the last they saw of him.”

“So what makes you think he’s lying?”

He gave an odd little smile. “The money, Mrs. Lester. Donna Chant doesn’t seem the sort of woman to turn her back on a million quid. No, if you ask me, collecting stuff was just a cover. I think Donna led Chant to believe she was here on her own and was considering a reconciliation, and arranged to meet him later at the motel. Your husband stays out of the way, they get all cosy, and somewhere along the line she spikes his drink. When he’s unconscious... well, I’m sure you can imagine the rest.”

“But surely someone would have seen them?”

“At the motel?” Conlan shook his head. “Guy was in the back watching television, only comes out if you ring. And the only surveillance cameras are in the car park and they were vandalised a week ago.” He paused. “Besides, we have evidence that puts your husband at the scene of the crime. Part of his credit card was found near the body, covered in his fingerprints. So unless you can think how else it might have got there...”

I closed my eyes. It was now or never. Either I kept quiet and let Derek be charged with murder, or I owned up, risked being convicted myself, and watched him and Donna swan off with a million pounds.

Outside, a man shouted and banged the side of the truck and slowly it began to move away.

“Well, Mrs. Lester?”

I took a deep breath. “I wish I could, Inspector,” I said, as Derek’s one hope of reprieve was carted off to the local landfill. “But I really can’t imagine.”

At that moment Conlan’s mobile rang. “Excuse me,” he said, and went briefly into the hall. He came back looking smug and sat down opposite me.

“So you really don’t know how the credit card got there,” he said, leaning forward across the table.

I frowned. “How could I?”

“Your husband suggested you might have put it there.”

“Me?” I laughed. “How on earth would I get his credit card?”

“It was an old one, ran out some time ago. While he was still living here.”

“Then I assure you it would have long gone,” I said. “Along with everything else. Though you’re welcome to look around...” I went to stand up.

“I don’t think that will be necessary, Mrs. Lester.” Conlan smiled. He turned to Thorpe. “That was HQ. It seems our Mrs. Chant wants to make a deal.”

“Deal?” I asked, though I knew full well what he meant.

“It means she’s willing to spill the beans in the hope of a more lenient sentence. It’s as good as a confession.” He climbed to his feet. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Lester. I know what a shock this must be.”

You don’t know half, I thought, as I followed them into the hall.

At the front door Conlan paused. “It’s funny,” he said, “I doubt your husband even knew that card was in his pocket. But that’s often how it goes. One little mistake, one moment of carelessness... Unlucky for him, of course. Without that they might have got away with it.” He stepped outside, glanced up at the house. “Still, at least you don’t need to worry about this place anymore. I don’t think your husband will be in a position to force a sale for quite a long time.”

“There is that, I suppose,” I said, and closed the door before they could see me smiling.

Copyright © 201 °Caroline Benton

Ravensara

by Melanie Lawrence

A longtime resident of Berkeley, California, Melanie Lawrence reads manuscripts for a living by day and works on suspense fiction at night. A former magazine editor, she is also a book reviewer whose pieces have run in the San Francisco Chronicle and the East Bay Express. Her stories for EQMM, like this one set in the world of art, always seem to have a haunting quality. It’s unusual for a short story to have a dedication, but she asked that this one carry the following: To Frank and Donna.

Bulgarians.

She hated the days immediately following a good review. No sooner had some newspaper published the words “brilliant new retrospective” than the museum was full of gawkers, barging in front of serious viewers, mouthing foolish phrases about the paintings — superb paintings, some of them, worthy of stillness and respectful silence. If Ursula had her way, there’d be a regulation against talking in art museums.

And this time it was worse. Oskar Elif had been showing his work to mounting acclaim since he was twenty-four, but had seldom exhibited outside Europe, and certainly not to this extent. Already, on a chilly Monday morning, the fifth-floor galleries swarmed and buzzed. This was the noisiest bunch since the big Rothko show. Ursula cursed, a hushed malediction in her mother tongue — Elif’s as well — as a young person bumped into her without so much as an apology. The inevitable black leather jacket, of course, and a tousled helmet of hair, tinted plum. Not that she herself had been any more courteous in her student days, cutting into lines, shouldering her way through knots of people to capture the best view of a painting. Lithe and light-footed she’d been back then, in her tight white T-shirts and platform boots. Now she was just another woman of a certain age and no longer lithe, a drab old bird in the navy blazer and beige polyester trousers that all the museum’s guards had to wear.

Break time. Ursula nodded to her colleague in the next room and headed upstairs to the catwalk. The great transparent dome had trapped so much winter sunlight that the entire top floor was warm as summer, especially along the narrow catwalk that ran directly beneath the dome and spanned the museum’s core, the imposing, icy-white circular stairwell. An installation was still in progress here; no mouthy art lovers breached the quiet.

From habit, she kept her head bent, imagining herself on a bridge across a mountain pass, shivering with a touch of vertigo, but exhilarated, too. She could see straight through the silvery steel mesh to the spiraling lower stories of the museum, one after another, as if discerning them through fog, while all around her floated sunny air and curving walls of white plaster and glass. A parachutist must feel like this, she thought, or a plant in a greenhouse. Sometimes a painting could deliver her into this state. Weightless. Endless.

That evening, when all these people were gone, she would have another good long look at Tidal Marsh. Estuary as well. And North Sea. Just for a treat.

Ursula had trained herself over the years to approach an exhibit slowly, patiently. Not for her now the aesthetic greed of her youth, which she had mistaken for talent. As a senior guard, she could choose her work assignments, and she did so with care, one room per week, the better to edge her body and mind closer and closer to a selected canvas, the better to know it, let it under her skin. A kind of calculated spontaneity, that was the way to learn a painting. Thus, on the staff’s preview day, she’d skimmed through “Oskar Elif: 30 Years of Painting,” silent and excited, eyes sliding from one masterpiece to another, automatically memorizing media and styles, but not really seeing anything.

No longer passionate about the genre, she chose the early gestural abstracts for week one. They were technically admirable but dismal, gray. Week two’s pick, the still lifes, were a different matter. Painted from photographs — “photography is the path to reality,” said Elif’s first published treatise on painting — they haunted the memory like images from a dream: a window ledge, whitened by frost; wooden candlesticks and a dish of oranges; a ring of silver keys. Almost, she wished she had saved that room for last.

Until she contemplated the waterscapes. She remembered the North Sea of her youth; she had never thought anyone could really paint it. And the pond series, each slightly more abstract than the last, gradually pared down to luminous shapes and chill layers of color. The man could paint water. He could probably paint air. Well, in a few days she would find out. Landscapes were next week.

Ursula awoke in a good humor that Monday, relishing her morning eggs and dark pumpernickel toast, slathered today with an extra spoon of raspberry preserves. An extra cup of espresso, too, dripping golden foam. She even French-braided her hair, stroked mascara through her lashes. Silly, perhaps, to dress up for a roomful of paint and canvas and blithering idiots, but why not? There was little enough respect shown great art in her adopted country, except for the money it would fetch.

As always, she arrived early, intent today on one work, Meadow, which she had viewed years ago at a group show in Paris. In her memory it rippled, softly emerald under an overcast sky, and she took the final stairs two at a time. She glanced up at the catwalk — no time for a quick trip across the bridge this morning. How did Elif manage to get his greens so fresh, while avoiding that calendar-art—

Ursula halted mid thought and stared at the child.

A very young infant, surely no more than one month old. Tightly swaddled, nestling in a wicker basket. The small fists were held at chest level, clenched, and the steel-blue gaze didn’t quite meet the viewer’s eyes, studied instead a point just above one’s head. Ursula turned around. There was no one else in the room. Just her and the child, like before.

God knows why she had gone through with it. She didn’t like children. They were loud, demanding creatures, sticky and frequently damp. So simple it would have been to get rid of this particular creature, simple and safe and legal. But she hadn’t. She’d kept putting it off, finding excuses: money, usually. “What a shame,” joked Ralf at what had proved to be their last meeting. “It’d be a good-looking kid.” He left her with a fistful of cash; she used it to buy oversized sweaters and new trainers for her aching feet, as well as a bottle of cognac and a posh leather portfolio. With a portfolio like that, she’d have to sketch more. And if she sketched more, undoubtedly she’d—

Ursula shut her eyes. The retinal image of the painting glowed, a fierce orange. She hadn’t thought about her daughter in years. Literally years. At first, yes, quite a lot: simple curiosity, nothing more. Where was she? A house? A flat? Napping in a garden? Was she crawling, walking, talking yet? A good sleeper, like her mother used to be? Did she love music? Primary colors, like her father?

Lucky little girl — she had been adopted, Ursula was assured, by an educated couple, rather young. “Don’t worry,” said the social worker, scanning Ursula’s paperwork, then her long hair, the hammered-silver earrings and black jeans, the portfolio propped against her chair. “They are people of culture. She’ll have a fine life.”

Good, she remembered thinking. So the child would be pretty and cultivated, probably go to university. She’d get by.

Ursula swayed and opened her eyes. She must sit down, quickly, and started to do so, right on the floor. My God, one would think her quite mad, sprawling on the floor of a public building like an adolescent. She opted instead for the wooden bench in the middle of the room. She looked some more at the child. A background of umber and fawn, slatey shadows in the white blanket. A cap of feathery brown hair. She could suddenly feel it again, under her fingertips. The gently swollen eyelids. The upward glance that took in everything and revealed nothing.

Standing up, she still felt a little dizzy, but shuffled toward the painting anyway. “Child, 1977. Acrylic after a photograph. Private collection.” Well, that was certainly helpful.

High heels sounded in the corridor behind her and she jumped. Young Whitney, probably. Her watch said 11:05. She’d daydreamed in front of the painting forever, and now she was late for her assignment.

As she hurried toward the east portal, Ursula almost ran into the high heels’ occupant. Not Whitney. A well-preserved woman about her own age, a frequent patron whose French accent she found unaccountably annoying. That lanky husband or lover in tow, as usual. Ursula murmured, “Pardon me,” but she needn’t have bothered.

“Oh, chéri, look! Is she not lovely?” The voice was deep and purring. “That tiny baby? She is precious.”

“Uh, yes,” said her companion. “Yes, Marie.”

The woman paid him no mind. “The brushwork. Those shadows. So precious.”

Ursula gasped, driving one fist into her palm with an audible smack. Some things are too precious to say aloud, she wanted to snarl. What a pleasure it would be to pick up the nearest guard’s stool and break it over the woman’s sleek, tawny head, silence the feline voice. She must get to her post, right away. This was a dangerous place.

Pulling rank, she was reassigned the next day to the child’s room.

Guards were supposed to stand or sit by the doorway. Each morning that week, Ursula inched herself along the wall, nearer and nearer the child, until she had an excellent prospect. Sometimes, casually patrolling the room, she would walk right up to her. Patrons who blocked her sight line were an infuriating nuisance, but by degrees she learned to ignore them and their ridiculous cooing. Eventually they would move on, and the child would be hers again, and time would dissolve.

Her pregnancy had been easy, the birth hard, given her youth and vigorous health. Twenty-four hours of labor and three hours of pushing, watched over by a morose midwife and visited, once, by her mother.

“What will you call her?”

“Why? What’s the use? I’m not keeping her.”

A snort of disgust. Ursula grinned and held the little bundle out, for courtesy’s sake, but the older woman shook her head. “She’s got to have a name.”

“Mary Magdalene?”

“That’s not funny.”

“Well — Rosa. For Rosa Luxemburg. Oh, all right. Ghislaine, that’s pretty. Gisela. Sara.”

Sara.

So what had those cultured folk actually named her? Ursula hadn’t loved the child, had been most relieved to see the back of her, in fact. Now, though, the question presented itself, over and over, while she was walking to work or chopping vegetables for her supper or lying awake at dawn. Alexandra? Hadn’t Alexandra been a fashionable name back then? Isolde? Very classy. But Sara was a nice name, really. According to the night nurse at the birthing home, it meant “princess” in some language or other. On the rare occasions Ursula had thought of her at all during the last twenty-odd years, she said to herself “the child,” but sometimes “Sara” had come to mind as well.

The dream surfaced Tuesday night and again on Thursday and Friday. While pregnant, Ursula suddenly remembered, she had dreamed of babies all the time. Now she saw a small child — whether boy or girl, impossible to say — skipping along one rail of the catwalk like a tightrope dancer. Once the child was chatting with Marie, the annoying Frenchwoman, and Ursula grew angry with them both. Another time, Ursula whispered, “Careful! You’ll fall!” but the child merely smiled to itself and glided through another bar of light.

It was no use; her supervisor wouldn’t give her a second week in the child’s room. “Ursula,” he said, “this is a very popular show. I know you love the Elifs, and I truly admire your dedication, but I’ve got to be equitable here. Whitney’s doing her master’s thesis on his photo-based work.”

Screw Whitney, she almost snapped. Then she took a swift breath. What if he assigned her to another exhibit altogether? What would she do then? Come in at lunch and breaks and on her free days? Well, if need be, she—

“Don’t look so worried, Ursula. I’ll just send you on to the North Gallery.”

The North Gallery. That wasn’t so bad; she could still easily get to the child during her breaks. And tomorrow was Sunday, her day off — she would visit the child’s room again tomorrow. Perhaps in a head scarf and dark glasses? The other guards already thought her a touch — eccentric. Ursula the loner, the art nut, polite and aloof, who never talked about family or friends or weekend plans or what she had watched on cable the night before. She didn’t want to give them any more to natter about.

The North Gallery was devoted to adult portraits. Ursula regarded them dubiously. People were seldom her subject of choice. But having already spent half an hour with the child that morning, she was ready to take on a new room of Elifs. And there, in the center of the west wall, was the signature painting of the exhibit, the one on all the posters plastered all over the city, the Sleeper.

Ursula understood why the young, fair-haired woman in gray, dozing in a wing chair, would captivate the crowd. Like the best of Elif’s portraits, she was so very still, suspended within her own world and her own light. One noted Hopper’s influence, and yet the girl’s affect was completely different. “Serene,” said the docents. No, thought Ursula. No one knew what she was, not even the painter. Only the sleeper knew. For such a popular work, it was truly good.

She felt almost content, almost herself again, here in the largest and loftiest of the galleries, lit by high clerestory windows. A week of the child had drained her. She needed a rest.

Ursula began a leisurely tour of the room. What was this, a landscape in the midst of the portraits? She moved nearer, drawn to the misshapen fir tree, to a green at once deep, dark, and cool.

At the top of the tree sat two inky birds. Her eyes traveled downward until she realized the painting wasn’t a true landscape. Reclining against the tree trunk was another young woman. Not the Sleeper, not nearly so blond. Ursula felt the blood beating inside her skull, almost heard its thrum. She made herself walk closer. The model appeared to be sitting in a garden; a high stone wall suggested itself in the background, and massive plants of various sorts, sprigged with small flowers — herbs perhaps. Ursula was about two meters from the painting now. One of the model’s hands rested in her lap, and the other wrapped a root of the tree. Feathery brown hair escaping from its knot, steel-blue eyes gazing upward, just above the viewer’s head. Ursula stooped to read the plaque next to the painting.

Ravensara.

“Ma’am?”

Ursula slowly swiveled her head.

“Where’s the sleeping lady?”

“The sleeping lady?”

The little girl nodded confidently. She had brown eyes, tilted at the corners. Ursula looked at her for a long time before saying, “Sleeper, she’s called.”

“I saw her on the bus. A poster of her. She’s so pretty.”

“Yes. No. You’re the one who’s pretty. See the bench there, with all the people? She’s just in front of it.”

The girl nodded again, puzzled but pleased, and dashed off. Ursula forgot to follow and admonish her for running in the museum. She returned to Ravensara.

So this was her daughter. It had to be. Who else could it be? A human being’s eyes, her glance, didn’t change, not in three years nor in thirty. She recognized her, knew her, absolutely.

Her daughter. Heavens, she was beautiful. Beautiful — and peaceful, as Ursula herself had never been. She had her youth and health and a garden and art. Ursula blinked. She felt flooded with light, physically drenched with it, as if a window shade had suddenly flown open. So this was joy, the mere knowledge that someone else existed. Almost, she wanted to cry, but that would prevent her looking at Sara.

Inhale while counting to four; hold it on a count of four; exhale on a count of four; hold again for four — what her old yoga teacher called square breathing. Ursula square-breathed conscientiously, several times, before returning to the doorway. She would inch along the wall, like a turtle. In less than an hour, she would have a perfect view of her daughter.

Much later that night, Ursula poured the last of her Christmas cognac. Now she was full of self-loathing. Her daughter? That was a painting. She had no daughter. She wasn’t a mother, she was a fool. With a conscious effort, she grasped the edge of the kitchen table and pulled herself upright.

She hadn’t looked at the family albums since moving to this studio, and couldn’t quite remember where they had got to. Not the bookshelves, not under the bed. The hall closet. She almost fell off the stepstool and had to grab at the clothing rod to save her balance. Ah, there they were, shoved to the very back of the top shelf: two big, leathery volumes full of relatives, collected by her mother, who had hated every one of them.

This time Ursula didn’t scruple to sit on the floor. She leaned against the closet door and pawed through the first album until she succeeded in ripping right through Great-Uncle Karl’s grim face. After that she paged more cautiously past grandparents and great-grandparents, long-dead cousins many times removed, uncles, aunts, Pappa — and Mamma, the old bitch, as a squalling baby, a sullen, uniformed school girl. Ursula stopped turning. Here it was: the yellowing snapshot of her mother taken on holiday just before her marriage, sitting on a stool under a birch tree and gazing into space. The same pose, almost, and the same unfathomable expression, even the same floating hair. Ursula fell asleep then, curled up on the hall carpet, not minding the cold.

No more alcohol, she told herself sternly; there was work to be done. She attached a small lock to the liquor cabinet and tossed the key behind the refrigerator. A long shower and lots of aspirin and coffee and juice, and she was ready for work.

How would she feel on seeing Sara again? Ursula paused on a curb for the red light before darting across the street. For why shouldn’t it be Sara? Elif was only nine or ten years her senior, educated, and as cultured a person as one could wish. He was a countryman, for God’s sake, and it wasn’t that big a country. A nurse probably mentioned the name to the adoption workers. The canvas was dated 1996; the model looked to be the right age. Given those liberal abortion laws, there probably hadn’t been many babies available for adoption. She must look that up. She must look many things up.

Once at her post, she slipped an envelope from her blazer’s inside pocket and boldly stepped right up to the painting. The resemblance between Sara and her own mother was even stronger than she had imagined. Faded though the little snapshot was, the shape of the faces, the high foreheads — these were unmistakable. Fingers trembling, she pulled out and unfolded the one drawing Ralf had made of her, the day they met. Again the shape of the face, and the hands, too. Tall, long-legged women, all three of them, but their hands were small, and shapely as gulls.

Ursula carefully replaced the photograph and the drawing. She glanced around — no authorities in sight. In the small notebook in which she kept track of her work schedule, she began a list: Search the Web for biographical information about Elif and for intelligent criticism about the paintings. Was there an adoptees’ organization in their native country? Very likely. Search “Sara Elif.” Perhaps she, too, was an artist. Look at the university art department’s Web site and see what their library had to offer. They might even be open this evening.

And the paintings themselves; Elif’s self-portrait, a happy contrast to the sober face in the exhibit brochure, might hold a clue. Ursula stopped writing. Daft of her — he wasn’t the biological father. Ralf was. Had she destroyed all her sketches of Ralf?

She had become too engrossed in her task, and the patron had to raise his voice. Where had all these people come from so suddenly? Ursula directed him to the bathroom, barely able to conceal her impatience, for a terrible thought had just occurred to her: When I find her, when I find my daughter, what then?

Ursula had always loved slow mornings at the museum, time during which she could sink into a chosen canvas as she would into sleep. A good painting was good company, and now Ravensara had become her best friend.

“Good morning, my love. How are you today?” she would ask the young woman. It was hard not to whisper the words out loud, but she heard them in her mind, sweet and vibrant.

“Fine, Mamma. I got up early and sketched. I’ve decided to paint the meadow.”

“That’s ambitious! In morning light?”

Sara laughed. “Oh, Mamma, what a cliché! And anyway, Pappa’s already done that. No, I was thinking late afternoon and sunny, but not too sunny. Autumn, decay, a chill in the air. You know.”

She did. A discussion of shadow ensued, and the infinite difficulty of painting light.

Ursula related tales of her childhood; her daughter listened with real interest. They compared notes about books, films, and favorite meals. But painting was their main topic of conversation, naturally. They liked many of the same artists. Sara herself had shown promise even as a small child. She has far more talent than I ever did, Ursula thought, more discipline, and a better color sense, too.

One afternoon, right in the middle of a debate about Jackson Pollock, came the shock of a beefy hand on her shoulder.

“Ursula? Ursula! Listen to me!”

Focusing on her supervisor’s features was oddly difficult. He looked — dimmed, as though seen through thick glass. She shrugged his hand away and tried to smile. “Yes? What is it?”

The benign face was frowning under its beard in a perplexed way. She noticed Whitney then, slouched a few steps behind him, shifting uneasily from foot to foot and not meeting her eyes.

“Ursula. Let’s go to my office and have a cup of coffee. Whitney’ll spell you.”

“But—”

He took her arm. Ursula almost jerked away. She disliked being touched by strangers. “I’ll be right back, darling,” she murmured. “Wait here.”

The upshot was that her supervisor was worried — no, concerned — about her. Patrons had, well, not complained exactly, but had brought their comments to the front desk. Ursula was obviously tired, she looked as if she hadn’t been sleeping well. She needed a sabbatical, a little rest, with pay. “Just for a few weeks, of course,” he added, stirring his empty coffee cup. “We couldn’t manage long without our most dedicated team member.”

Ursula produced a real smile this time. She had recovered her poise, pushed her panic down with maternal resolve. She’d buy a wig if necessary, and higher-heeled shoes. They couldn’t keep her away from her daughter. No one could.

At least the “sabbatical” gave her more time for research, in between discreet visits to Sara. She found Elif maddeningly circumspect about his private life, with only a few Web sites offering any personal data. He had married young, to another artist, and was now divorced. He had two children. He lived in the country. That was all. His published essays about art history and technique were masterly, but unrevealing of Elif’s own history. The ex-wife’s information was similarly limited.

How discouraging! How could so great and well-known a painter manage to live in such secrecy? These were the moments when Ursula’s shoulders would droop with anxiety and sadness, and she would have to make herself more coffee before she could go on.

No “Sara Elif” to be found on the Web, no prominent Northern European painters named Sara at all, not in the right age range. One afternoon, Ursula’s favorite search engine suggested yet again that she might want to try a different spelling — and this time she discovered that there was a young painter named Sarah Linder (Linderstrom was the name of Elif’s hometown!), whose landscapes were thought very fine. She was only twenty-seven, but surely that was a typo or an error. No mention of her antecedents, which made Ursula nod approvingly. Her daughter, of course, would want to be judged on her own merits.

Two of Sarah Linder’s paintings were in a group show which had just opened a few days before in Brussels; Ursula, trembling with excitement and pleasure, thought this amazing piece of synchronicity a good omen. She printed out the review and Sarah Linder’s The Clearing, and taped them above her computer. The Clearing depicted a rook circling a tree; even reproduced in pixels, Sarah’s handling of the light on the blue-black wings was ravishing. Another dark bird: another nice bit of synchronicity.

Now if she would only hear back from the adoptees’ organization. Perhaps she should write them; e-mail could so easily go astray. Or maybe even telephone very early tomorrow morning? However it came, the news would be good, Ursula assured herself. Soon she’d have a legitimate excuse to start researching airline schedules, too!

All that sitting and clicking and concentrating and coffee had made Ursula restless. She decided to go back to the museum, just for a few minutes before it closed. She wouldn’t bother with the damned wig. No one would notice her; she was an employee, after all.

Half an hour later, she was sitting in front of Ravensara. Judging from that one online example, “Sarah Linder” had been scrupulous about finding her own style, her own palette, but there were certain similarities, too. Ursula walked as close as she dared to the painting to get a better look at the birds.

“Marvelous, is it not?”

She muttered an affirmative.

“She resembles you, a little.”

Lowering her head, Ursula saw that her companion was the art-loving Frenchwoman.

“You think so?”

“Oh yes.” The Frenchwoman was tall, her features large, well proportioned, and now creased in amusement. “Yes. You, but not you. It’s been a long time since I last saw her. She’s much older now.”

Ursula could not speak.

“Have you done your homework? Do you know what ravensara is?” pursued the Frenchwoman.

She shook her head.

“It’s an herb. See it there, the big bush to the left of the fir? Ravensara aromatica. Pretty name, eh, for a disinfectant? It comes from—”

“You know her?” Ursula cut in.

The woman stared back at her proudly, and when she spoke again her accent was stronger, the R’s more pronounced. “Oh, very well indeed! I gave Oskar that photograph when I was twenty, but it took him another twenty-something years to get around to painting me!” She shook her head, still smiling. “Artists! One moment they hate you, the next you’re the beloved and the muse! But how can you not forgive someone who makes you live forever?”

She lifted her strong hands, the thumbs out at right angles, and framed her own face.

“Someone who — What the hell are you doing?” The French accent had vanished.

Ursula didn’t hear the other woman. Her own hands were on the painting’s frame, lifting it from the wall. She was vaguely aware of a mechanized shriek somewhere in the room. How lucky that she had worn her old running shoes! They carried her past a wildly gesticulating guard and into the corridor. She would never have believed she could run so fast, and up stairs at that, and with such a burden. So swift was her flight that the curved walls blurred around her, a globe swimming in light, and only the soft metallic clang underfoot guided her to the middle of the catwalk. She flung her arms forward, opened her hands wide, and let Ravensara soar into space.

Her supervisor was being so kind. For once she didn’t mind his hand on her shoulder. He was talking softly, as a father might, while they walked the endless corridors to his office. Sometimes she caught a phrase or two: “A miracle no one was hurt, a real miracle.” “Destroyed. That lovely painting.” But one word especially. “Why?” he wanted to know. Why?

Why? Ursula tried her best to remember. “The Frenchwoman,” she said at last. “Because the Frenchwoman told me it was she. In the painting. Not Sara. Sara’s gone.”

A tall, lean man rounded the corner just then, about to hurry past them. He stopped abruptly. “A Frenchwoman? Good-looking, fiftyish? Five feet nine?”

She nodded.

“Where did you see her?”

“I don’t remember.”

The tall man looked into her face. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll find her. And by the way, she’s not French. And she’s not in any painting.”

“What do you mean?” she whispered.

He hesitated, then shrugged, seemingly resigned. “She has — it’s called HPD: histrionic personality disorder. Grandiose people. They crave attention. They lie.” He laughed, not unkindly. “Marie always wanted to be an artist. She found the next best thing.”

“So did I,” said Ursula slowly. She thought a moment. “So have I.” She smiled at him. “My daughter’s a painter. Sarah Linder. Watch for her name — she’s the real thing.”\

Copyright © 2010 Melanie Lawrence

Heartbeat

by Katia Lief

Katia Lief is most often published as “Kate Pepper.” Four paperback-original suspense novels from Signet Onyx have appeared under that pseudonym over the past few years. Publishers Weekly called the latest, Here She Lies (which is about identity theft), “a suspenseful, well-written yarn that will leave most readers guessing until the final twist.” The earlier Kate Peppers are One Cold Night, Seven Minutes to Noon, and Five Days in Summer. For her EQMM debut, the author chose to use her real name.

The office holiday party, in the big conference room down the hall, had been under way for over an hour, its excitement intensified by a blizzard that had shut down transportation throughout Manhattan. Everyone was stuck here, Champagne was flowing, and the party promised to stretch on for as long as the storm outside continued.

But Effie Miller had decided at the last minute not to attend. She occupied her roost outside the chairman’s office, where for nearly twenty years she had served as his loyal executive assistant, and stared at the check for two million dollars. It was blue, drawn from an account at Citibank, typed and signed by the accountant of Ames Vanderbilt, of the Vanderbilts, one of the private Stollit Fund’s regular investors. The check had yet to be deposited, thanks to the storm, a force majeure for which Effie was grateful. It had been that kind of day: a day of extraordinary forces she felt powerless to resist.

First, that morning, the call from her oncologist giving her the bad news. Then a decision.

She slipped the check into the top drawer of her desk. To Ames Vanderbilt and Ted Stollit, two million dollars wasn’t all that much; while to her, two million dollars was two million dollars. It staggered her imagination to think of what she could accomplish and enjoy with that amount in the approximately six months of life she had left. Now that she allowed herself to think this way, it was outrageous, criminal, the way these amounts flowed as if they were nothing.

The blizzard was growing in strength. Through the glass partition between their offices, she could see Ted. He was leaning back in his chair with his ankle-crossed feet propped up on the credenza, gazing through his wall of casement windows into the black-and-white dazzle of nature at its best and worst as snow danced on the backlit stage of Park Avenue at night. His office was dark, except for one lamp, and in the obscurity, his silver hair glistened. In the distance, the top of the Empire State Building was illuminated in horizontal stripes of red and green; yesterday, the lights had been blue and white.

Effie was just locking her desk drawer, and was about to get up, when the outer door to the hushed chairman’s suite she shared with Ted opened. Ebullient chatter spilled in. She hung the key around her neck, where she always wore it on the gold chain Ted had given her years ago, and let it fall into her pink silk blouse.

“Effie, aren’t you coming to the party?”

Jay Patel, the young investment analyst who had taken a shine to her, treating her with the unflagging affection of a dutiful grandson — though she was only almost fifty-three — was well on his way to being drunk. His cheeks were flushed and his usually neat, dark hair looked as if someone had run her fingers through it.

“Of course; when I’m finished here.”

“It’s after six! You can’t always work.”

“Just one or two more things to finish up.”

“Can’t I at least bring you a glass of Champagne?

“That would be lovely. And bring one for Ted, too, if you don’t mind.”

Jay was back in moments with two slender flutes, which he set on her desk, knowing that only she was permitted to intrude uninvited upon their elusive chief executive.

“Isn’t it your birthday over the break?” Jay lingered.

“The day after Christmas.” She smiled to deflect the whimper of sympathy that always came next. It was true: Her birthday was often forgotten in the exhausted aftermath of the holiday, but she was used to it by now. Over the years she had developed a system to avert loneliness: a movie, a meal out at her favorite Chinese restaurant, a book under a cozy blanket on her couch until bedtime. She was always relieved when the next work week began.

“As long as you won’t be alone.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” she said; and he nodded as if this simple advice made absolutely perfect sense.

She smiled again, and waited, until finally he turned around. When he was gone, she rose and locked her door. Her office was a larger, more expensively appointed space than most of the Stollit Group’s executives occupied, with a carpet that cost more than Effie’s annual salary, an ultra-modern, impractical desk, and four Le Corbusier cowhide chairs surrounding a glass coffee table that was too low... all picked out by Ted’s late wife, Linda, and quietly, stubbornly accepted by Effie over the years. Now his fiancée wanted to redecorate — the twenty-nine-year-old former waitress, lately decked out in cashmere and diamonds, had remarked, with a glance at Effie, that the “entryway” to Ted’s “throne room” was in need of a “serious facelift.” A chill had run through Effie when she overheard that comment: It was as if the girl knew how she, Effie, had felt about her boss all these years. That she was in love with him, and that when Linda died and he bypassed her for a younger model, as they said, she had been heartbroken. Every night for two months, after the appearance of the waitress half a year ago, she had cried herself to sleep.

Effie stood there, in the quiet of her space, summoning courage. She picked up the two glasses of Champagne, crossed the room, and tapped the rim of one flute against the glass of Ted’s door. He turned, saw her, saw that she had Champagne for him, and smiled. Reaching beneath his desk, he buzzed her in and the door swung slowly open.

“Happy holidays, Ted.” She handed him one of the glasses over his glowing Makassar ebony desk.

“Happy holidays to you, too, Effie.”

He came around and stood in front of her, stooping slightly, as he was considerably taller than she was. Their glasses made a musical tinkle, a lovely sound, when he touched his to hers. Effie sipped her Champagne, letting it linger on her tongue a moment before swallowing. Then she took another, longer sip as her nerves began to compose themselves.

“I’d like to talk to you, Ted, if you have a minute,” she said.

He opened his arms and released one of his smiles: broad, friendly, exposing crooked rows of whitened teeth. He was sixty-one years old, handsome, one of those men who aged well. “Effie, you, of all people, don’t need an invitation to have a conversation with me.”

She wished he wouldn’t flirt with her, or whatever it was he did that felt like flirting. She took another sip of her Champagne.

“By the way, did Ames’s check ever get here?”

“Yes, but too late. I have it in my desk.”

“Bring it to me, will you?”

“Ted — I have something to say.”

His smile faded; he cocked his head. “Yes?”

She hated to tell him this, because it would change everything. But she had had to miss a day of work last week to see the doctor and he had already asked her twice if she’d gotten the test results. He had lost Linda to breast cancer and, since then, if anyone he knew had a medical scare, he had shown inordinate concern.

“To begin, well, I heard from my doctor.”

“And?” He put his glass on the corner of his desk, leaned forward, and touched her shoulder. The warmth of his hand radiated through the thin barrier of silk. She wished he would take his hand off, because it only made it harder; once she walked out of here, chances were she would never see him again.

“Pancreatic cancer. Late stage. I’m a goner.” She tipped up her glass and let the Champagne flow into her mouth.

“Effie.” Now both his arms were around her and she had a terrible thought: She should have sprung the same news on him a year ago, before it was true, before he met the waitress. Maybe, if they had found their arms around each other like this when she was healthy, a future for them might have tempted his imagination. But she was finished with lying. That was the whole point.

She pulled away, reached for his Champagne, and drank that, too. “Sorry. I’ll get you some more.”

He stopped her from leaving by holding onto her arm. “How long do you have?”

“He said six months, but it was only a guess.”

“I’m sorry, Effie. Really sorry. What can I do?”

She was intoxicated, and now the rest came more easily. She knew she could walk away, take the check with her, and that would be that; but if it was the last thing she ever did, and it might be, she had to take a stand.

“There’s nothing you can do for me anymore, Ted. Obviously I’m not going to keep working.”

“Of course not. But there is something I can do for you. Where do you want to go? Anywhere — name it. How do you want to spend the rest of your life? Tell me, and it’s yours.”

“I want to accomplish something,” she said. “Do something courageous.”

His eyes clouded a bit; it wasn’t the answer he expected. “Let me send you to Polynesia, to Moorea. I’ve heard it’s the most beautiful place on earth. Sandy wants to go there for our honeymoon.”

“No, thank you.” She took a breath. “It’s about Mr. Vanderbilt’s check. We can’t deposit it.”

“Oh?”

“This has to stop.”

She watched the muscles of his jaw grind. This was the moment she had most feared: when she stepped beyond his control.

“This isn’t the time for an attack of conscience. You’re sick, so let me help you. But you don’t have to bring everyone down with you.”

“Everyone?” Just you. He knew as well as she did that they were the only people with access to the Stollit Fund’s account; the Stollit Group was a separate entity that handled the firm’s other, legitimate business.

“Effie, I’m not sure you realize how special you are to me. This has always been our secret. Not even Linda knew.”

“I’ve thought about that. She died never knowing, which in a sense made your marriage, all those years, honest — as in a tree falling in a forest that no one hears makes no sound. She never knew, so it didn’t happen. When you remember her now, it must help you to think of yourself as a good man.” The remittance of that thought, which had taken months to clarify, lightened her.

“What exactly is it you’re trying to say to me, Effie? Are you planning to call the Securities and Exchange Commission? Is that it?”

Her gaze veered away from him and landed on Dora Maar au Chat, Picasso’s painting of a disarranged woman seated on a chair with a black cat on her shoulder, Ted’s most recent acquisition. He had paid over ninety-five million dollars for it at auction — ninety-five million dollars of other people’s money. The thought settled into her consciousness, weightily, as if for the first time; and as her attention skipped across the room — the photograph of his Hamptons beach house, another photo of his house in the south of France, the solid-gold golf-ball paperweight on his desk, the statuettes of bulls scattered throughout his office — she felt the onslaught of despair, as if she had just now walked in on a robbery. She probably didn’t have enough time left in her life to understand how, and why, she had given her trust without reservation to a thief, or where, or if, she would find the courage to disown him now.

“What I’m trying to say is,” she felt a little woozy, and cleared her throat, “what I’m trying to say is...”

“Are you dizzy, Effie?” He stepped toward her. “Come here — some fresh air might help.”

His hand wove around her back and she felt his fingers cling to her waist. It was an almost sexual feeling of closeness; her body relaxed and swayed into him. Would it be so bad to allow herself the fantasy of Effie-and-Ted one more time? And then another dreadful thought: She had the power to blackmail him. Not for money, but as so many men had done to women through history — for sex. She banished the idea immediately. What she had always wanted from Ted was love.

Together they looked out into the blizzard, fourteen flights above the abandoned snow-covered streets. He pulled up the handle of one of the windows and pushed it open. Frigid air and icy snowflakes rushed at them. She stopped breathing, closed her eyes, and turned her face against the protective shield of Ted’s chest.

“Effie,” he whispered. He gently stroked the side of her face. His fingers wandered down along her neck — much as she had imagined. Her body grew warm in the freezing air. Her brain seized on the contrast: life and death; love and sex; honesty and lies. She felt, for once, imperfectly human. Alive.

“Ted.” She struggled to reverse herself. “I won’t... I can’t...”

“Shh.”

He undid the top three buttons of her blouse, leaned down, and kissed her breast. Breath rushed out of her. Her mind blanked.

“Effie,” he whispered again.

She put her hand to his head and pressed his ear to her chest. “Can you hear my heart? It’s beating so fast.”

“I hear it.”

He kissed her, tenderly, carefully. It was exactly as she had imagined it would be: slow, arousing, drenched with emotion. She felt as if her heart was swelling, actually swelling, and opened her legs as his hand traveled up her skirt. When the fabric was gathered at her hips, she allowed him to help her backward onto the credenza. She wanted to reach forward and touch him, too, but didn’t dare. Her mind had never pictured that part of it; it was always what he did for her, and how she let him.

“Effie.”

She felt the chain snap off her neck as she fell backward out of the window. Her blood sobered, her brain awoke. She was flying through the air, flying, her body twisting incrementally in the downward rush toward the expanse of untouched snow.

Ted closed the window and shook ice crystals off his arms. He dropped the gold chain and key into his pants pocket and straightened his tie. On second thought, he opened the window and threw Effie’s Champagne glass out after her. How tragic: a drunken suicide on the day she learned of her terminal cancer. He left his own glass where it was, empty on his desk, and crossed through his office into hers. He unlocked the top drawer of Effie’s desk. Ames Vanderbilt’s check was sitting right there. He folded it and slipped it into his wallet, relocked the drawer, and dropped the key back into his pocket.

When he opened the suite’s outer door, he felt a click as the lock button popped up. How perfectly she always anticipated his needs, protected him. He would miss her in that way.

“Ted!”

It was young Jay Patel, coming down the hall. Beyond them, in the conference room, Ted heard music, laughter.

“Jay, did I miss the all the fun?”

“Still going strong. I was on my way back to make Effie come. She’s such a party pooper, isn’t she?”

Patel was slurring, stinking drunk. Ted slapped the young man’s back and steered him toward the party.

“She’s just putting on her lipstick. Come on, show me where to find a drink.”

Copyright © 2010 Katia Lief

The Black Whatever

by James Powell

James Powell’s whimsical holiday stories have become a regular feature of EQMM’s Christmas issue. And as Jon L. Breen points out in this month’s Jury Box, the latest collection of Powell short stories, A Pocketful of Noses (brought out by Crippen & Landru Publishers in June 2009) also contains a particularly memorable holiday tale by the Canadian-born author.

The last Halloween jack-o’-lantern had hardly been drop-kicked out into the middle of the street when it was boots on the ground for Santa’s crack naval commando unit, the Christmas Seals.

The Pilgrim Fathers never saw it coming. Maybe they were wearing their belt-and-buckle hatbands too tight that year, cutting off blood to the brain. The elves caught the whole lot of them sitting down to table. When the Pilgrim Fathers turned to their Native American dinner guests for help, they saw buckskin backs disappearing into the trees. After a defense more blunder than blunderbuss the Pilgrim Fathers headed for the trees themselves. Long the sickie among the holidays, Thanksgiving wasn’t going to be missed.

When the turkey-in-Mayflower-regalia flag was lowered for the last time, Santa himself stood on the reviewing stand to receive the salute of his victorious elves amid the rumbling flyover of flak-blanketed reindeer pulling humpsters, as the armored sleighs were called, for their part Humvee, part dumpster appearance. Next came a contingent of elves in boater hats carrying long poles and singing a shrill medley from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers. Santa’s Little Helpers brought up the rear. The SLH, pro-North Pole activists who hid their identities behind full white beards, marched, pumping left arms up and down and chanting ho-ho-ho behind a banner that read “Cheers for Mr. C., who made the toy trains run on time!”

Several rows behind Santa, Police Commissioner Denis Ahern stood next to the governor. Ahern’s reputation as a man who got things done had already attracted the attention of the state politicos. He watched the proceedings with the careful eye of an ambitious man, spotting the mayor’s loping gait and two-tone shoes among the SLHers and wondering why the Mart-Mart marchers were there. All Thanksgiving meant to the merchandising giant was that the following day, Black Friday, the Christmas shopping season began with stores moved out of the red ink and into profitability. The Mart-Mart people carried placards that read “Hooray for the Black Whatever!”

After the parade, Ahern went down and introduced himself to Santa. “Didn’t I know your great-aunt Moira?” asked the jolly old elf. “A fine Dolly Dimples of a woman she was back then. We called her Miss Curly-Toes. Did she ever tell you why?” Ahern said she had. They smiled at each other. Then Ahern moved on. The Mart-Mart people were waiting to shake Santa’s hand.

Ahern sat alone in the backseat of his car. The governor had his eyes on Washington and the approaching Senate race. In return for Ahern’s support, he had offered to back the police commissioner for the governorship. But something told Ahern he could do better. When he took over the department, crime was rampant in the city and police morale in the tank. Last year crime was down another fifteen percent, and enrollment at the Police Academy was way up. And Ahern had done it all without increasing the police budget one red cent.

Most people thought his success began with Operation Flat Foot, putting his people out of their patrol cars and back pounding the beat where they could nod at the shopkeepers, look the punks in the eye, and get the feel of the neighborhood.

But old ways die hard, which went double for policemen, as Ahern, a third generation cop, knew very well. Stories of night-shift patrolmen sleeping in unlocked parked cars sent him prowling the streets to catch them at it. One night three Decembers ago, Ahern, coming quietly around a corner, spotted a pair of knee-high elves, each with a clipboard tucked under his arm, studying a street map beneath a lamppost. They wore smart forest-green uniforms with epaulettes like lug treads.

One elf looked up, saw Ahern, and touched his companion’s arm. They both gave the police commissioner a wink and vanished into the darkness.

Ahern recognized those epaulettes. His late great-aunt Moira had written Herself’s Field Guide to the Little People of Eastern North America, illustrating it with box-camera photos from her turn-of-the-last-century freelance journalist days.

(“Are we talking brownie shots, Auntie?” schoolboy Ahern once teased the old woman. She’d squeezed his knee approvingly. “There’s my grand-nephew.” Her words smelled of whiskey, for she lived in a fairy world with convenient suns and yardarms.)

Her field guide chapter on elves showed every sort, from stout sled-wrights with beards tucked in their belts to miners, candle stubs stuck on their hat brims, who delved beneath the North Pole for kriskringlite, the rare mineral, essential in the making of Christmas tinsel, that financed Santa’s operations and the Toy Works.

The caption under the photo of the elf wearing the lug-tread epaulettes read: “North Pole Intelligence Officer, a.k.a. Naughty-or-Nicer, who once provided Santa with the names of the good and bad humans. They always worked in pairs, so every Christmas list could be checked twice. Note the epaulettes allowing one officer to stand on the other’s shoulders, handy for peeking through keyholes.”

In the mid nineteenth century, her book explained, Santa replaced these elf foot patrols with observation sleighs pulled into orbit around the earth by high-flying reindeer and equipped with surveillance devices at the top end of kerosene technology. Elves had a knack for putting everyday objects together in breakthrough combinations. Their Space-Time Capacitor, a clever arrangement of stopwatches and shoehorns, allowed Santa to deliver presents all around the world in a single night. Their Phrenoptikon combined spyglasses and finger posts with felt-piercing capabilities so orbiting elves could probe human skulls phrenologically, looking for overdeveloped bumps of acquisitiveness and secrecy, the gimmie-gimmies and shifty-shadies, as the elves called them.

Soon burglars and cutthroats were lining the inside of their hats with the newly invented iron tissue paper, believing it deflected such surveillance. By the time criminals learned the foil did not work, they had made themselves social outcasts by refusing to tip their hats to ladies on the street or kneel bareheaded in church.

Similarly, rustlers squatting around Western campfires came to believe black hats would frustrate the Phrenoptikon. This made things easier for the lean, handsome, white-hatted men into whose Christmas stockings Santa put the tin stars and silver bullets.

So if the Phrenoptikon worked, why had Santa returned to foot patrols? Ahern’s first thought was cost-cutting. Orbiting observation sleighs had to be expensive. And hadn’t he read an article in a recent New York Times under the headline “Mine Flooding Roils Kriskringlite Supply”?

Whatever Santa’s reason, that December’s crime statistics showed elf foot patrols much more effective than any vague spy probe in the sky. Crime sat on its hands all the way to Christmas morning. Ahern was amazed how getting something for nothing trumped everything else in the criminal heart. But he kept this discovery to himself and let Operation Flat Foot take credit for the drop in crime.

As his car entered downtown, Samantha, Ahern’s driver, a blond beauty with a skier’s golden tan, smiled back at him. “It’s a jingle out there, sir!” And it was. Shoppers crowded the streets and lamppost loudspeakers played Christmas music.

Last year Ahern had skeleton-crewed the police department for the month of December. Later, he used Decembers off as a recruiting tool among the ski-bum, ski-bunny crowd like wonderful Samantha there. With Thanksgiving knocked out of the box he could skeleton-crew right back to Halloween. But how long, Ahern wondered, could criminals sit on their hands without bursting?

That night’s television news led off with the story that Santa had joined Mart-Mart Corporation’s board of directors. This was followed by footage of the elves’ victory march-past and the jolly old gent’s morning arrival at the city’s seaplane facility. There he was coming down the ramp of the North Polaris flying boat in wading boots and waving to the camera. (The elf color commentator told the viewers the boots came with Santa’s new interest in fly-fishing.)

That reminded Ahern how Great-Aunt Moira got the nickname Miss Curly-Toes. “I did this photo article, ‘At Home With the Clauses,’ for Frozen Homes and Gardens,” she’d told him. “At the North Pole the elves wore ice skates, old-fashioned jobbies with the blades curled up in front when they pushed visitors like yours truly around on sleds. ‘Whoa, Nellie!’ Mrs. Claus said when my sled-pushers tried to follow me inside. She valued her floors, you see, and made them pull heavy socks on over their skates. My group shot of Santa, the missus, and those elves with socks over their skates started the story that elves wore curly-toed boots. The Clauses called me Miss Curly-Toes from then on. I stopped visiting after Mrs. Claus ran off with another...” She looked away before finishing the sentence. “With somebody else, and Santa got broody.”

Ahern smiled as he remembered her words. Then he stood up in astonishment. Frozen Homes and Gardens explained everything, Santa’s wading boots, the flying boat, the elf gondoliers, the Christmas Seals. Goddamn global warming had flooded the North Pole. Santa and his elves were down here searching for the high and dry and it looked like they’d found it!

For criminals, those weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas must have crawled by. Maybe some did burst, for all Ahern knew. A team of safecrackers did blow themselves up. Was it suicide, nerves, or simple clumsiness? And a guy at the Cut-Throat Club went berserk, slashing and killing a dozen members before falling on his own knife. And what about the local chapter of the Forgers’ League, who committed suicide en masse, leaving a round-robin suicide note the experts judged to be authentic? Other criminals, unable to break the laws of God or man without forfeiting their Christmas presents, chose to violate their own code of honor by informing on their colleagues.

After Christmas, in spite of Santa’s assurances that he had no other territorial demands, Ahern heard reports that back at Fort Halloween the things that go bump in the night were getting goose bumps, fearing Santa meant to turn around and strike them from the rear.

In the first week of January, Congress, its gallery packed with Naughty-or-Nicers waving clipboards, ratified the Constitutional amendment giving elves the right to vote. The SLH quickly announced the formation of the Sanity Party, describing sanity as something the country needed a good dose of. So the Reindeer joined the Donkey and the Elephant in the political menagerie.

A few days later, the mayor loped into Ahern’s office. He had just come from a meeting with some serious people who wanted to field a slate of candidates for the November elections, he said. Would Ahern consider running for the U.S. Senate? The white beard peeking out of His Honor’s jacket pocket told Ahern who those serious people were. He saw Santa as a winner and accepted.

“Stress family values,” the mayor advised him. “But if the business about Mrs. Claus and the Tooth Fairy comes up, say Santa wishes both ladies the best of luck, blah blah blah.”

Then came February. The steep white walls of St. Valentinesburg Castle were decorated with pink rosettes and topped with pink crenellation, from behind which the cherub defenders could shoot their arrows and dump boiling chocolate and heavy cinnamon hearts down on any besieger.

In an eve-of-the-feast surprise attack the elves skied out of the woods. (Some say Santa had bribed the Groundhog’s people to have the creature see its shadow, guaranteeing six more weeks of snow.) In addition, the SLH had infiltrated Dy-Dee Den, which serviced the castle and starched that morning’s issue.

But wily General Dan Cupid, he of the brass diapers, keeping a cool head, sent his cherub air arm into battle naked. Buttocks an angry red, they dove down out of the sun, mad as hornets, quivers aquiver. First they attacked the humpster air support, coating the observation slits with paintball-tipped arrows, blinding the fly-boy elves, whose vehicles spun out of control. Many crashed. (The rosy-cheeked journalists imbedding with the angels reported that no reindeer were injured in the making of this tactical move.)

Then they swooped down on the skiers. Beset from the air by an angelic swarm shooting accurate little arrows, the elves retreated back into the woods, protected by a battery of bim-bim guns, as the anti-cherubim combinations of flyswatters powered by mousetraps were called.

That night the woods moaned with the lovelorn sighs and sobs of wounded elves. Santa moved among the campfires denouncing the use of unrequited love in warfare as a clear violation of the Hearts and Flowers clause of the Geneva Convention. Then he gave his famous speech urging the elves back into battle, beginning with, “Tomorrow is St. Valentine’s Day,” and ending with the rhetorical flourish: “We wee few, we wee happy few, we wee band of brothers!”

At dawn, the elves eagerly renewed the attack, charging through a blinding snowstorm. The sledded bim-bim guns were in place before the cherubs could de-ice their wings. Those who got airborne were quickly swatted down. Blinded by the driving snow, General Cupid’s archers on the castle walls couldn’t stop the swift-skiing attackers. Armed with battering-ram/ladder combinations, elves breached the castle gates. Others scaled its walls. The defenders threw down their bows and arrows and fought hand to hand.

In the ensuing slaughter, hosts of angels fell. Gallant cherub centurions feigned broken wings to draw the attackers away from those under their command. Angel feathers flew everywhere and can still be found, wooly-wise, under furniture all around the world.

In the end, only St. Valentinesburg Castle remained, empty, forlorn, and, as the months passed, looking more and more like a cake left out in the rain.

Back at Fort Halloween, Santa’s victory made specters go pale, disembodied voices moan, and invisible hands tremble as they rattled their chains, convinced they would be next. Headless horsemen drilled the saber charge. Sandbag defenses sprang up around every haunted house. Scarecrow jack-o’-lanterns in air-raid warden helmets patrolled the rooftops. Down in the basement strategy room the witches and warlocks toiled and troubled. But Santa would let them stew in their own bubbling cauldron for a few months yet.

Not long after St. Valentinesburg, Santa resigned from the Mart-Mart board of directors to enter politics. In his farewell speech he wondered out loud why it couldn’t be Black Whatever every day of the year. The board’s eyes brightened. “Ho-ho-ho,” they uttered approvingly.

Santa’s words gave everyone permission to Christmas shop all year round. Soon industry was humming away making the goods for the names on the shoppers’ long lists, for no one wanted the shame of getting more Christmas presents than they gave. Meanwhile, surrounded as it was by clipboard elves, exploding colleagues, suicides, and squealers, the underworld decided to bid goodbye to the gimmie-gimmies and the shifty-shadies. Hardened criminals took well-paying factory jobs and, showing the kind of focus management appreciates, they rose quickly through the ranks.

This was the holiday atmosphere in which the political conventions were held. Santa won the Sanity Party’s presidential nomination and named the Easter Bunny as his running mate. When Mr. E. B. himself loped on stage in a full bunny suit amid a release of balloons painted like Easter eggs, he set a tone of good-natured fun that would last all through the campaign. Happy times, had there ever been any before, were clearly here again.

Nothing but Halloween stood between Santa and a November victory.

Creatures of darkness shunned the sun for their complexions’ sake and feared a daylight attack most of all. But if Santa got to choose the time, they would choose the weather. So dawn did not break that Halloween morning. Instead, thunderclouds as black as night brought pelting rain and lightning bolts, all reeking of the cauldron. Every grim-jawed ghoulie, ghostie, and long-legged beastie manned the ramparts. Suddenly, in midmorning, the darkness blinked, the thunder stuttered, the lightning bolts bolted, and the sun broke through. (The SLH had infiltrated the fort’s supplier of magical ingredients, adulterating the eye of newt with tapioca, the toe of frog with toad, the bat wool with mouse.)

The rampart defenders fled from the light to their sturdy haunted houses, intending to make a vigorous stand. But they found the doors locked. Amid the wild weather, teams of Christmas Seals had snorkeled up from the sewer and entered by the drains and commodes while others rappelled down from humpsters onto the roofs and entered by the chimneys Santa-wise.

The witches and warlocks tried to escape the fort with their precious bubbling cauldron in a covered wagon with headless-horseman driver and outriders, all impervious to sunlight. But a heat-seeking missile from a humpster locked onto the cauldron and blew the wagon and its passengers to dark Kingdom Come.

Fixing their bayonets, the elves entered the fort. Quickly the moaning, wailing, and chain-rattling stopped. The Fort Halloween massacre foreshadowed Santa’s success at the ballot box a few days later.

Running late, Senator-elect Denis Ahern headed through the crowded hotel lobby, which was decked with stars and candy-cane striped flags. But before he reached the glass elevator up to the victory celebration in the Reindeer Room, Santa and his Secret Service entourage arrived through another bank of doors. The police cleared the way for them.

In the elevator, Santa turned to face the glass door and smiled out at the crowd. When he saw Ahern, his smile grew bigger still. Then, laying his finger aside of his nose and giving a wink, from the lobby he rose.

To make up time, Ahern hurried back to the service elevators. When he popped through a pair of closing doors, several serious-looking men reached inside their suit coats. But the mayor raised a calming hand.

“Ahern,” nodded the mayor.

“Your Honor,” said the senator-elect.

When the elevator doors opened again Ahern went one way and the mayor and the serious-looking men another, followed by a bellhop pushing a wheeled luggage rack from which hung a bunny suit in a plastic garment bag.

After two hours of smiles, handshakes, and victory signs on prime-time TV, Ahern left the hotel, feeling strangely let down. Two months from now he’d be in Washington with the police department and all its great guys and gals behind him. Was that it?

He headed toward his car, parked on the street down from the hotel, walking under lampposts decked with stars and candy-cane bunting and loudspeakers uttering a drumbeat of ho-ho-hos. Halfway into the car’s backseat Ahern saw he’d caught his temporary driver, a bookish old desk sergeant, with his nose in a hefty tome. To put the embarrassed man at ease, Ahern smiled and gave a cheery, “Hey, how about that Santa?”

The driver raised a finger. “Commish, remember where Elias Canetti wrote, ‘God is a preparation for something more sinister that we do not yet know? I never really got that one. Now maybe I’m starting to catch his drift.”

“Ho-ho-ho,” volunteered the loudspeaker on the lamppost at the curb.

Ahern pulled the door shut. He felt tired. Who the hell was this Canetti guy? he wondered. And when would the wonderful Samantha get back from the ski slopes?

Out loud he said, “Drive on.”

Copyright © 2010 James Powell

Happy Holidays

by Val McDermid

Val McDermid’s latest novel, The Fever of the Bone, will be released in the U.K. on September 3. The book is the sixth to feature clinical psychologist Dr. Tony Hill and Chief Inspector Carol Jordan, who also star in this new story. Val McDermid’s last novel to appear in the U.S. also belongs to the Tony Hill series. Entitled Beneath the Bleeding, it was published by Harper Paperbacks in summer 2009.Many TV viewers will recognize the characters in this story as the protagonists of the series Wire in the Blood.

Previously published in the U.K., in the Mail on Sunday, December 2008. ©2008 by Val McDermid

1.

A chrysanthemum burst of colour flooded the sky. “Oooh,” said the man, his blue eyes sparking with reflected light.

“Aaah,” said the woman, managing to invest the single syllable with irony and good humour. Her shaggy blond hair picked up colour from the fireworks, giving her a fibre-optic punk look at odds with the conservative cut of her coat and trousers.

“I’ve always loved fireworks.”

“Must be the repressed arsonist in you.”

Dr. Tony Hill, clinical psychologist and criminal profiler, pulled a rueful face. “You’ve got me bang to rights, guv.” He checked out the smile on her face. “Admit it, though. You love Bonfire Night, too.” A scatter of green-and-red tracer raced across the sky, burning afterimages inside his eyelids.

DCI Carol Jordan snorted. “Nothing like it. Kids shoving bangers through people’s letter boxes, drunks sticking lit fireworks up their backsides, nutters throwing bricks when the fire engines turn up to deal with bonfires that’ve gone out of control? Best night of the year for us.”

Tony shook his head, refusing to give in to her sarcasm. “It’s been a long time since you had to deal with rubbish like that. It’s only the quality villains you have to bother with these days.”

As if summoned by his words, Carol’s phone burst into life. “Terrific,” she groaned, turning away and jamming a finger into her free ear. “Sergeant Devine. What have you got?”

Tony tuned out the phone call, giving the fireworks his full attention. Moments later, he felt her touch on his arm. “I have to go.”

“You need me?”

“I’m not sure. It wouldn’t hurt.”

If it didn’t hurt, it would be the first time. Tony followed Carol back to her car, the sky hissing and fizzing behind him.

The smell of cooked human flesh was unforgettable and unambiguous. Sweet and cloying, it always seemed to coat the inside of Carol’s nostrils for days, apparently lingering long after it should have been nothing more than a memory. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and surveyed the grisly scene.

It wasn’t a big bonfire, but it had gone up like a torch. Whoever had built it had set it in the corner of a fallow field, close to a gate but out of sight of the road. The evening’s light breeze had been enough to send a drift of sparks into the hedgerow and the resulting blaze had brought a fire crew to the scene. Job done, they’d checked the wet, smoking heap of debris and discovered the source of the smell overwhelming even the fuel that had been used as an accelerant.

As Tony prowled round the fringes of what was clearly the scene of a worse crime than arson, Carol consulted the lead fire officer. “It wouldn’t have taken long to get hold,” he said. “From the smell, I think he used a mixture of accelerants — petrol, acetone, whatever. The sort of stuff you’d have lying around your garage.”

Tony stared at the remains, frowning. He turned and called to the fire officer. “The body — did it start off in the middle like that?”

“You mean, was the bonfire built round it?”

Tony nodded. “Exactly.”

“No. You can see from the way the wood’s collapsed around it. It started off on top of the fire.”

“Like a guy.” It wasn’t a question; the fireman’s answer had clearly confirmed what Tony already thought. He looked at Carol. “You do need me.”

Tony smashed the ball back over the net, narrowly missing the return when his doorbell rang. He tossed the Wii control onto the sofa and went to the door. Carol walked in, not waiting for an invitation. “We’ve got the postmortem and some preliminary forensics. I thought you’d want to take a look.” She passed him a file.

“There’s an open bottle of wine in the fridge,” Tony said, already scanning the papers and feeling his way into an armchair. As he read, Carol disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two glasses. She placed one on the table by Tony’s chair and settled opposite him on the sofa, watching the muscles in his face tighten as he read.

It didn’t make for comfortable reading. A male between twenty-five and forty, the victim had been alive when he’d been put on the bonfire. Smoke inhalation had killed him, but he’d have suffered tremendous pain before the release of death. He’d been bound hand and foot with wire and his mouth had been sealed by some sort of adhesive tape. For a moment, Tony allowed himself to imagine how terrifying an ordeal it must have been and how much pleasure it had given the killer. But only for a moment. “No ID?” he said.

“We think he’s Jonathan Meadows. His girlfriend reported him missing the morning after. We’re waiting for confirmation from dental records.”

“And what do we know about Jonathan Meadows?”

“He’s twenty-six, he’s a garage mechanic. He lives with his girlfriend in a flat in Moorside—”

“Moorside? That’s a long way from where he died.”

Carol nodded. “Right across town. He left work at the usual time. He told his girlfriend and his mates at work that he was going to the gym. He usually went three or four times a week, but he never showed up that night.”

“So somewhere between — what, six and eight o’clock? — he met someone who overpowered him, bound and gagged him, stuck him on top of a bonfire, and set fire to him?”

“That’s about the size of it. Anything strike you?”

“That’s not easy, carrying out something like that.” Tony flicked through the few sheets of paper again. His mind raced through the possibilities, exploring the message of the crime, trying to make a narrative from the bare bones in front of him. “He’s a very low-risk victim,” he said. “When young men like him die violently, it’s not usually like this. A pub brawl, a fight over a woman, a turf war over drugs or prostitution, yes. But not this kind of premeditated thing. If he were just a random victim, if anyone would do, it’s more likely to be a homeless person, a drunk staggering home last thing, someone vulnerable. Not someone with a job, a partner, a life.”

“You think it’s personal?”

“Hard to say until we know a lot more about Jonathan Meadows.” He tapped the scene-of-crime report. “There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of forensics at the scene.”

“There’s a pull-in by the gate to the field. It’s tarmacked, so no convenient tire tracks. There’s a few footprints, but they’re pretty indistinct. The SOCOs think he was wearing some sort of covering over his shoes. Just like the ones we use to preserve the crime scene.” Carol pulled a face to emphasise the irony. “No convenient cigarette ends, Coke cans, or used condoms.”

Tony put down the file and drank some wine. “I don’t think he’s a beginner. It’s too well executed. I think he’s done this before. At least once.”

Carol shook her head. “I checked the database. Nothing like this anywhere in the U.K. in the last five years.”

That, he thought, was why she needed him. She thought in straight lines, which was a useful attribute in a cop, since, however much they might like to believe otherwise, that was how most criminals thought. But years of training and experience had honed his own corkscrew mind till he could see nothing but hidden agendas stretching backwards like the images in an infinity mirror. “That’s because you were looking for a burning,” he said.

Carol looked at him as if he’d lost it. “Well, duh,” she said. “That’s because the victim was burned.”

He jumped to his feet and began pacing. “Forget the fire. That’s irrelevant. Look for low-risk victims who were restrained with wire and gagged with adhesive tape. The fire is not what this is about. That’s just window dressing, Carol.”

Carol tapped the pile of paper on her desk with the end of her pen. Sometimes it was hard not to credit Tony with psychic powers. He’d said there would be at least one other victim, and it looked as if he’d been right. Trawling the databases with a different set of parameters had taken Carol’s IT specialist a few days. But she’d finally come up with a second case that fit the bill.

The body of Tina Chapman, a thirty-seven-year-old teacher from Leeds, had been found in the Leeds-Liverpool canal a few days before Jonathan Meadows’ murder. A routine dredging had snagged something unexpected, and further examination had produced a grisly finding. She’d been gagged with duct tape, bound hand and foot with wire, tethered to a wooden chair weighted with a cement block, and thrown in. She’d been alive when she went into the water. Cause of death: drowning.

A single parent, she’d been reported missing by her thirteen-year-old son. She’d left work at the usual time, according to colleagues. Her son thought she’d said she was going to the supermarket on her way home, but neither her credit card nor her store-loyalty card had been used.

Carol had spoken to the senior investigating officer in charge of the case. He’d admitted they were struggling. “We only found her car a couple of days ago in the car park of a hotel about half a mile from the supermarket her son said she used. It was parked down the end, in a dark corner out of range of their CCTV cameras. No bloody idea what she was doing down there. And no joy from forensics so far.”

“Anybody in the frame?”

His weary sigh reminded her of cases she’d struggled with over the years. “It’s not looking good, to be honest. There was a boyfriend, but they split up about six months ago. Nobody else involved, it just ran out of road. Quite amicable, apparently. The boyfriend still takes the lad to the rugby. Not a scrap of motive.”

“And that’s it?” Carol was beginning to share his frustration. “What about the boy’s real father?”

“Well, he wasn’t what you’d call any kind of father. He walked out on them when the lad was a matter of months old.”

Carol wasn’t quite ready to let go the straw she’d grasped. “He might have come round to the idea of having some contact with the boy.”

“I doubt it. He died in the Boxing Day tsunami back in oh-four. So we’re back to square one and not a bloody thing to go at.”

Carol still couldn’t accept she’d reached the end of the road. “What about her colleagues? Any problems there?”

She could practically hear the shrug. “Not that they’re letting on about. Nobody’s got a bad word to say about Tina, and I don’t think they’re just speaking well of the dead. She’s been working there for four years and doesn’t seem to have caused a ripple with other staff or parents. I can’t say I share your notion that this has got anything to do with your body, but I tell you, if you come up with anything that makes sense of this, I’ll buy you a very large drink.”

Making sense of things was what Bradfield Police paid Tony for. But sometimes it was easier than others. This was not one of those occasions. Carol had dropped off the case files on Jonathan Meadows and Tina Chapman at Bradfield Moor, the secure hospital where he spent his days among the criminally insane, a clientele whose personal idiosyncrasies he did not always find easy to distinguish from the population at large.

Two victims, linked by their unlikelihood. There was no evidence that their paths had ever crossed. They lived thirty miles apart. Carol’s team had already established that Tina Chapman did not have her car serviced at the garage where Jonathan Meadows worked. He’d never attended a school where she’d taught. They had no apparent common interests. Anyone other than Tony might have been reluctant to forge any link between the two cases. Carol had pointed that out earlier, acknowledging that her counterpart in Leeds was far from convinced there was a connection. Tony’s instincts said otherwise.

As he read, he made notes. Water. Fire. Four elements? It was a possibility, but admitting it took him no further forward. If the killer was opting for murder methods that mirrored fire, water, earth, and air, what did it mean? And why did it apply to those particular victims? Tina Chapman was a French teacher. What had that to do with water? And how was a garage mechanic connected to fire? No, unless he could find more convincing connective tissue, the four elements wasn’t going anywhere.

He studied the file again, spreading the papers across the living-room floor so he could see all the information simultaneously. And this time, something much more interesting caught his attention.

Carol stared at the two pieces of paper, wondering what she was supposed to see. “What am I looking for?” she said.

“The dates,” Tony said. “October thirty-first. November fifth.”

Light dawned. “Halloween. Bonfire Night.”

“Exactly.” As he always did when he was in the grip of an idea, he paced, pausing by the dining table to scribble down the odd note. “What’s special about them, Carol?”

“Well, people celebrate them. They do particular things. They’re traditional.”

Tony grinned, his hands waving in the air as he spoke. “Traditional. Exactly. That’s it. You’ve hit the nail on the head. They’re great British traditions.”

“Halloween’s American,” Carol objected. “Trick or treat. That’s not British.”

“It is originally. It came from the Celtic Samhain festival. Trick or treat is a variation of the Scottish guising tradition. Trust me, Carol, it only got to be American when the Irish took it over there. We started it.”

Carol groaned. “Sometimes I feel the Internet is a terrible curse.”

“Not to those of us with enquiring minds. So, we’ve got two very British festivals. I can’t help wondering if that’s the root of what’s going on here. Tina died like a witch on the ducking stool. Jonathan burned like a bonfire guy. The murder methods fit the dates.” He spun on his heel and headed back towards Carol.

“So I’m asking myself, is our killer somebody who’s raging against Britain and our traditions? Someone who feels slighted by this country? Someone who feels racially oppressed, maybe? Because the victims are white, Carol. And the killer’s paid no attention to Diwali. Okay, we’ve not had Eid yet, but I’m betting he won’t take a victim then. I’m telling you, Carol, I think I’m on to something here.”

Carol frowned. “Even if you’re right — and frankly, it sounds even more crazy than most of your theories — why these two? Why pick on them?”

Tony trailed to a halt and stared down at what he’d written. “I don’t know yet.” He turned to meet her eyes. “But there is one thing I’m pretty sure about.”

He could see the dread in her eyes. “What’s that?”

“If we don’t find the killer, the next victim’s going to be a dead Santa. Stuffed in a chimney would be my best guess.”

Later, Tony’s words would echo in Carol’s head. When she least expected it, they reverberated inside her. As she sat in the canteen, half her attention on her lasagne and half on the screen of the TV, she was jolted by a news flash that chilled her more than the November snow: SANTA SNATCHED OFF STREET.

2.

It had been a long time since Tony had been a student, but he’d never lost his taste for research. What made his investigations different from those of Carol and her team was his conviction that the truth lay in the tangents. An exhaustive police investigation would turn up all sorts of unexpectedness, but there would always be stuff that slipped between the cracks. People were superstitious about telling secrets. Even when they gave up information, they held something back. Partly because they could and partly because they liked the illusion of power it dealt them. Tony, a man whose gift for empathy was his finest tool and his greatest weakness, had a remarkable talent for convincing people that their hearts would never be at peace till they had shared every last morsel of information.

And so he devoted his attentions to identifying the unswept corners of the lives of Tina Chapman and Jonathan Meadows.

The first thing that attracted his attention about Tina Chapman was that she had only been in her current job for four years. In his world, history cast a long shadow, with present crimes often having their roots deep in the past. He wondered where Tina Chapman had been before she came to teach French in Leeds.

He knew he could probably short-circuit his curiosity with a call to Carol, but her gibe about the Internet was still fresh in his mind so he decided to see what he could uncover without her help.

Googling Tina Chapman brought nothing relevant except for a Facebook entry describing her as “everybody’s favourite language teacher,” an online review of the sixth-form performance of Le Malade Imaginaire that she’d directed, and a slew of news stories about the murder. None of the articles mentioned where she’d taught previously. But there was an interesting clue in one of them. Tina’s son wasn’t called Ben Chapman but Ben Wallace. “Lovely,” Tony said aloud. If Wallace had been Ben’s father’s name, there was at least a fighting chance that his mother had used it at some point.

He tried “Tina Wallace” in the search engine, which threw out a couple of academics and a real-estate agent in Wyoming. Then he tried “Martina Chapman,” “Christina Chapman,” “Martina Wallace,” and finally, “Christina Wallace.” He stared at the screen, hardly able to credit what he saw there.

There was no doubt about it. If ever there was a motive for murder, this was it.

Detective Inspector Mike Cassidy knew Carol Jordan only by reputation. Her major-case squad was despised and desired in pretty much equal measure by Bradfield’s detectives, depending on whether they knew they would never be good enough or they aspired to join. Cassidy avoided either camp; at forty-two, he knew he was too old to find a niche working alongside the chief constable’s blue-eyed girl. But he didn’t resent her success as so many others did. That didn’t stop him showing his surprise when she walked into his incident room with an air of confident ownership.

He stood up and rounded his desk, determined not to be put at a disadvantage. “DCI Jordan,” he said with a formal little nod. He waited; let her come to him.

Carol returned the nod. “DI Cassidy. I hear you’re dealing with the abduction in Market Street?”

Cassidy’s lips twisted in an awkward cross between a smile and a sneer. “The case of the stolen Santa? Isn’t that what they’re calling it in the canteen?”

“I don’t care what they’re calling it in the canteen. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing funny about a man being kidnapped in broad daylight on a Bradfield street.”

Cassidy took the rebuke on the chin. “As it happens, I’m with you on that one, ma’am. It’s no joke for Tommy Garrity or his family. And apart from anything else, it makes us look like monkeys.”

“So where are you up to?”

“Tommy Garrity was dressed in a Santa suit, collecting money for Christmas for Children when two men in balaclavas and blue overalls drove up the pedestrian precinct in a white Transit. They stopped in front of Tommy, bundled him into the Transit, and took off. We got the van on CCTV, turns out it was stolen off a building site this morning.” Cassidy turned to his desk and excavated a map from the stack of paper by the keyboard. He handed it to Carol. “The red line’s the route they took out of the city centre. We lost them round the back of Temple Fields. Once you come off Campion Way, the coverage is patchy.”

Carol sighed. “Typical. What about the number-plate-recognition cameras?”

“Nothing. At least we know they’ve not left the city on any of the main drags.”

“So, Tommy Garrity. Is he known?”

Cassidy shook his head. “Nothing on file. He works behind the bar at the Irish Club in Harriestown, does a lot of charity work in his spare time. He’s fifty-five, three kids, two grandkids. Wife’s a school-dinner lady. I’ve got a team out on the knocker, but so far Garrity’s white as the driven.”

Carol traced the line on the map. “That’s what worries me.”

Cassidy couldn’t keep his curiosity at bay any longer. “If you don’t mind me asking, ma’am, what’s your interest? I mean, not to play down the importance of daylight abduction, but it’s not major in the sense of being up your street.”

Carol dropped the map on Cassidy’s desk. “Just something somebody said to me a couple of weeks ago. Can you keep me posted, please?”

Cassidy watched her walk out. She was more than easy on the eye, and normally that would have been all that registered with him. But Carol Jordan’s interest had left him perturbed and anxious. What the hell was he missing here?

News generally passed Tony by. He had enough variety in his life to occupy his interest without having to seek out further examples of human shortcomings. But because he’d floated the suggestion of Santa as potential victim, he was more susceptible than normal to the scream of newspaper billboards that announced: SANTA SNATCH IN CITY CENTRE.

The story in the paper was short on fact and long on frenzy, queasily uncertain whether it should be outraged or amused. Tony, already on his way to Carol’s office, quickened his step.

He found her at her desk, reading witness statements from the Santa kidnap. She looked up and squeezed out a tired smile. “Looks like you were right.”

“No, I wasn’t. I mean, I think I was, but this isn’t him.” Tony threw his hands in the air, exasperated at his inability to express himself clearly. “This isn’t the next victim in a series,” he said.

“What do you mean? Why not? You were the one who told me I should be looking out for Santa. And not in the sense of hanging up my stocking.”

“There were two of them. I never said anything about two of them.”

“I know you didn’t. But it would have made the first two murders a lot easier if they’d been two-handed. And we both know that racially motivated fanatics tend to work in cells or teams. After what you said, I’ve had my crew looking at all our intel and we’re not getting many hits on lone activists.” She shrugged. “It may not have been in the profile, but two makes sense.”

Tony threw himself in the chair. “That’s because I was ignoring my own cardinal rule. First you look at the victim. That’s what it’s all about, and I got distracted because of the eccentricity of the crimes. But I’ve looked at the victims now and I know why they were killed.” He fished some printouts from his carrier bag. “Tina Chapman used to be known by her married name. She was Christina Wallace.” He passed the top sheet to Carol. “She taught French at a school in Devon. She took a bunch of kids on a school trip and two of them drowned in a canoeing accident. The inquest cleared her, but the bereaved parents spoke to the press, blaming her for what happened. And it does look like they had pretty strong reasons for that. So, she moved away. Reverted to her maiden name and started afresh.”

“You think one of the parents did this?”

“No, no, that’s not it. But once I knew that about Tina, I knew what I was looking for with Jonathan.” He handed over the second sheet. “Seven years ago, a five-year-old girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The car was a Porsche that had allegedly been stolen from a garage where it was in for a service. The garage where Jonathan Meadows worked. I went over there and spoke to the local traffic officers. They told me that there was a strong feeling at the time that the Porsche hadn’t been stolen at all, that Jonathan had taken it for a ride and had lost control. His DNA was all over the car, but his excuse was that he’d been working on it. His girlfriend gave him an alibi, and nothing ever came of it.”

Carol stared at the two sheets of paper. “You’re saying this is some kind of vigilante justice?”

Tony dipped his head. “Kind of. Both victims were implicated in the death of a child but went unpunished because of loopholes in law or lack of evidence. The killer feels they stole children away from their families. I think we should be looking for someone who has lost a child and believes nobody paid the price. Probably in the past year. He’s choosing these victims because he believes they’re culpable, and he’s choosing these murder methods because they mark the points in the year where parents celebrate with children.”

Within the hour, Tony and Carol were studying a list of seven children who had died in circumstances where blame might possibly be assigned. “How can we narrow it down?” she demanded, frustration in her voice. “We can’t put surveillance on all these parents and their immediate families.”

“There’s no obvious way,” Tony said slowly.

“Santa Garrity could still be a potential victim,” Carol said. “We don’t know enough about his history, and there’s nothing in your theory to say it couldn’t be two killers working together.”

Tony shook his head. “It’s emotionally wrong. This is about punishment and pain, not justice. It’s too personal to be a team effort.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Couldn’t we at least go and talk to the parents? Shake the tree?”

“It’s a waste of time. Even you can’t pick out a killer just by looking at them.”

They sat in glum silence for a few minutes, then Carol spoke again. “Victims. You’re right. It all comes back to victims. How’s he choosing his victims? You had to do some digging to come up with what you found. There was nothing in the public domain to identify Jonathan, and Tina had changed her name. That’s why the motive didn’t jump out at my team.”

Tony nodded. “You’re right. So who knows this kind of information? It’s not the police, there’s at least two forces involved here. Not the Crown Prosecution Service either, neither of them ever got that far.”

Light dawned behind Carol’s eyes. “A journalist would know. They get access to all kinds of stuff. He could have recognised Tina Chapman from the press photographs at the time. If he has local police contacts, he could have heard that Jonathan Meadows was under suspicion over the hit-and-run.”

Tony scanned the list. “Are any of these journalists?”

DI Cassidy entered the Children for Christmas offices almost at a run, his team at his heels. A trim little woman got to her feet and pointed to her computer screen. “There. Just as it came in.”

The e-mail was short but not sweet. “We’ve got Santa. You’ve got money. We want 20,000 pounds in cash. You’ll hear from us in an hour. No police.”

“I thought I would ignore the bit about no police,” the woman said. “It’s not as if we’re going to be paying the ransom.”

Cassidy admired her forthrightness but had to check she was taking all the possibilities into consideration. “You’re not frightened they might kill Mr. Garrity? Or seriously harm him?”

She gave him a scornful look. “They’re not going to hurt Santa. How do you think that would go down in prison? You of all people should know how sentimental criminals are.”

Carol’s conviction that David Sanders was a serial killer took her no closer to making an arrest. There was a small matter of a complete lack of evidence against Sanders, a feature writer on the Bradfield Evening Sentinel Times. Even the apparent miracles of twenty-first century forensic science couldn’t nail this. Water and fire were notorious destroyers of trace evidence. She’d hoped that close analysis might fit together the cut marks on the tape and wire from the previous killings, but the fire had done too much damage. That meant there was no chance of definitively linking them to any materials still in Sanders’s possession.

There were no reliable witnesses or meaningful CCTV footage. A couple of homeless men had turned up claiming to have seen Tina Chapman go into the canal. But the person pushing her had been wearing a Halloween mask and the sighting had gone nowhere.

The only option left was to cling to Tony’s conviction that the killer would strike again before Christmas. It was always hard to persuade her bosses to mount surveillance operations because they were so costly and because they took so many officers off other cases, but at least this one had a fixed end point.

And so they watched. They watched David Sanders go to work. They watched him drink in the pub with his workmates. They watched him work out at the gym. They watched him do his Christmas shopping. What they didn’t watch him do was abduct and murder anyone.

Then it was Christmas Eve, the last day of authorised surveillance. In spite of the privileges of rank, Carol put herself down for a shift. It was already dark when she slid into the passenger seat of the anonymous car alongside DC Paula McIntyre. “Nothing moving, Chief. He got home about an hour ago, nobody in or out since.”

“The house doesn’t look very festive, does it? No sign of a tree or any lights.”

Paula, who had known her own share of grief, shrugged. “You lose your only child? I don’t expect Christmas is much to celebrate.”

The Sanderses’ four-year-old daughter had drowned during a swimming lesson back in September. The instructor had been dealing with another kid who was having a come-apart when Sanders’s daughter had hit her head on the poolside. By the time anyone noticed, it had been too late. According to a colleague discreetly questioned by Sergeant Devine, it had ripped Sanders apart, though he’d refused to consider any kind of medical intervention.

Before Carol could respond, the garage door opened and Sanders’s SUV crawled down the drive. They let him make it to the end of the street before they pulled out of their parking place and slipped in behind him. It wasn’t hard to stay on the tail of the tall vehicle, and fifteen minutes’ driving brought them to a street of run-down terraced houses on the downtrodden edge of Moorside. On the corner was a brightly lit shop, its windows plastered with ads for cheap alcohol. Sanders pulled up and walked into the shop carrying a sports holdall.

“I think this is it,” Carol breathed. “Let’s go, Paula.”

They sprinted down the street and tried the door of the shop. But something was jamming it. Carol took a couple of steps back, then charged the door, slamming her shoulder into the wooden surround. Something popped and the door crashed open.

Sanders was standing behind the counter, a cricket bat in his hand, dismay on his face. “Police, drop your weapon!” Carol roared as Paula scrambled to the far end of the counter.

“There’s someone here, Chief. Looks like he’s unconscious,” Paula said.

The cricket bat fell to the ground with a clatter. Sanders sank to the floor, head in hands. “This is all your fault,” he said. “You never make the right people pay the price, do you?”

Carol collapsed into Tony’s armchair and demanded a drink. “He didn’t even bother with a denial,” she said. “Being arrested seemed almost to come as a relief.” She closed her eyes for a moment, memory summoning up Sanders’s haggard face.

“It generally does when you’re not dealing with a psychopath,” Tony said.

Carol sighed. “And a very merry bloody Christmas to you, too.”

“You stopped him killing again,” Tony said, handing her a glass of wine. “That’s not an insignificant achievement.”

“I suppose. Jahinder Singh’s family can celebrate the festive season knowing their father’s safe from any further consequences from selling solvents to kids.” Before Carol could say more, her phone rang. “What now?” she muttered. She listened attentively, a slow smile spreading from mouth to eyes. “Thanks for letting me know,” she said, ending the call. “That was Cassidy. Santa’s home free. Two extremely inept kidnappers are banged up, and nobody got hurt.”

Tony raised his glass, his smile matching hers. In their line of work, making the best of a bad job was second nature. This wasn’t exactly a happy ending, but it was closer than they usually managed. He’d settle for that any day.

Copyright © 2010 Val McDermid

My lawyer had the jury in tears — when he got to the part about never having won a case.

Content

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

The Death of Ramona by Stephanie Kay Bendel

Io, Saturnalia! by Margaret Maron

Who Knows Where It Goes by Lawrence Block

A Fish Story by Ronald Levitsky

The Digital Date by Doug Allyn

The Fifth Guest by Richard Macker

The Jury Box by Jon L. Breen

The Body in the Dunes by Caroline Benton

Ravensara by Melanie Lawrence

Heartbeat by Katia Lief

The Black Whatever by James Powell

Happy Holidays by Val McDermid

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