Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

On Lookout

by Barbara Owens

Viewers of television programs featuring profiles of wanted criminals must all feel a little tantalized by the possibility that the outlaw is someone they know, but for the main character in Barbara Owens’s story, every new face bears a suspicious aspect...

* * *

By late evening St. Louis’s Lambert Airport was becalmed. An occasional arrival or departure still caused a brief flurry, but the hordes were gone — into the air somewhere, or waiting by phones in far-flung rooms to see if their lost luggage had been found. The few souls still wandering the terminal looked as though they lived there — familiar nods to concessionaires, a friendly “How’d it go today?” to a uniformed flight crew stepping smartly by.

Crawley’s Coffee Shop was waiting out the final hour to closing, its new manager, Arthur Woolsey, having already arrived to begin the day’s bookwork. Two of the three waitresses, Ruth Blackburn and Vonda Martin, retired to a booth to nurse black coffee and watch Cookie Gudermeyer sprint back and forth behind the counter as if she had a hundred hungry customers instead of three lone ones slumped there.

Vonda sighed. “Look at that girl. Never slows down. And nothing to her but skin wrapped around bones. She makes me tired.”

“I’m trying to remember if I had that much energy when I was nineteen,” Ruth said. “But I can’t remember when I was nineteen.”

“Cookie, come on over here and sit down,” Vonda called softly. “Leave those nice people alone. They’ll let you know if they want anything.”

With an embarrassed little grin, the thin blonde redirected her lope towards them. She fell into the booth with a bounce, pushing drifting strands of lank hair under her headband.

“I guess I still got a lot to learn.” Her voice was small and breathless. “I only want to do a good job, you know?” She had an ugly smear of gravy across the bib of her coral apron.

Vonda patted her hand. “Honey, you’re doing fine. You just got to be careful not to overdo. You’re real intense, aren’t you?”

Cookie’s brow wrinkled. “I guess. But with Buddy gone and all, just me to take care of Little Bud, I need to do everything right.”

Ruth and Vonda exchanged glances. If they didn’t change the subject she’d be off again, about how Buddy had coaxed her up from the Ozarks, promised to marry her and didn’t, then took off and left her with their baby boy, Little Bud. Cookie wasn’t mad. She was confident that Buddy would come back, she just didn’t know how soon. In the two months she’d been working at Crawley’s, they’d heard it many times.

“So, Vonda,” Ruth said quickly, “how’s Carlisle doing?”

Vonda’s dark eyes flashed gratitude. “Doing okay. If he ever gets graduated. I’ll be too old to have kids, but I’ll smile with the best teeth around.”

Her rich laugh made Ruth smile. Vonda was one of her favorite people. Here was an example of two black kids who’d fought their way out of an East St. Louis ghetto, gotten married, and worked together to put Carlisle through dental school. Nearing thirty, they were almost there, and Ruth had never heard a complaint about the hardships they’d endured. She had a lot of respect for Vonda and Carlisle.

“Well, kids aren’t everything,” she consoled. “I love mine, but some days I could live without them.”

Cookie leaned forward eagerly, her mouth opening, but Vonda was too fast for her.

“So how are yours getting along with that new boyfriend?” she teased. “That Raymond. You thinking to take the plunge again?”

Ruth felt herself blush. “They like him. But I don’t know. I got burned once. Now here I am with two teenage kids, and Walt’s hiding out so he won’t have to pay child support. Makes me a little gun-shy.”

Vonda grinned. “Raymond sounds awful nice, though.”

Ruth had to smile. “He is. Kind of scary. He’s almost too good to be true.”

Cookie released a sigh so gusty that neither woman could ignore it.

“Something wrong, Cookie?” Vonda asked reluctantly.

“Oh, it’s just that I didn’t spot one again today,” Cookie said.

Vonda rolled her eyes at Ruth. Cookie’s other obsession — the television series Lookout. It profiled wanted criminals, urging viewers to be on the lookout for them, and Cookie was addicted to it. She’d spent more than she could afford for a VCR to tape every episode, and she could spout offenses, aliases, and identifying marks until someone stopped her. She was certain that someday she’d spot a fugitive, maybe collect a big reward for turning him in. Cookie was on the lookout constantly.

“Cookie,” Vonda said patiently, “what makes you think you’ll ever see one of those guys? You know the chances of that happening? You shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

Cookie hunched over the table, her freckles quivering. “It just makes sense!” she whispered. “Think about it. When they’re on the run they have to keep moving, don’t they? So they travel a lot. And this is an airport, right? See my point? They’ve got to travel and they’ve got to eat. I work in an airport coffee shop.” She fell back against the booth, beaming. “It’s just a matter of time before I see one.”

Vonda winked at Ruth. “So how about the guy in your apartment building? You got anything on him yet?”

Cookie sobered. “I’m just not sure about him. And you should be pretty sure before you call. I’ve been through all my tapes, but they try to look different. Disguise themselves, you know, beards and glasses and stuff. But I’m not giving up. I know he’s one.”

Before any more could be said, Arthur Woolsey approached. “Come on, girls. Time to wrap it up for the night.”

Small and tentative, Arthur was like a puppy asking to be petted. He was new at the job and had gone out of his way to be nice to them. Vonda suspected he had a thing for Cookie.

And Cookie was up, bounding away to do his bidding. Ruth and Vonda scooted slowly from the booth. Vonda rose, her lean elegant length towering over the little man. Leaning forward, she planted a kiss on the top of his straw-colored rug.

“Whatever you say, boss,” she murmured, giving his belly a little pinch.

Arthur squeaked, flapping his hands at her. “Honestly, Vonda, you’re incorrigible,” he said before hurrying away.

Vonda’s eyes danced at Ruth. “Artie says I’m incorrigible. Was that a slur, you think?”

It was the end of a long day. Ruth shifted, testing the soles of her aching feet. “Could be. But we’ve both been called worse. Come on, let’s go home.”

Two days later Ruth was surprised to look up from the counter and see Raymond smiling across at her. The bump her heart took surprised her even more.

“Hi,” Raymond said.

Ruth said, “Hi.”

She felt silly, like some high-school girl instead of a forty-two-year-old woman with two big kids. And she’d been feeling that way for a month, since the night they’d met at her church social. Feelings were bubbling up in her that she’d almost forgotten, and she wasn’t sure they were welcome. She’d been on her own for a long time, raising two boys by herself. She didn’t know that a Raymond in her life was what she wanted. But he was such a nice big bear of a man, with eyes earnest behind horn-rimmed glasses, a dark furry beard and gentle smile. Feeling self-conscious, she glanced to see if Vonda and Cookie were watching. They were. Vonda’s eyes signaled the question — Is that him?

“What’re you doing here?” Ruth asked, trying not to let him see how flustered she was.

“I hate to bother you, hon,” Raymond said. She liked his voice, too, deep and warm. “But I need to borrow your car. I’ve got this job interview over the river in Alton. Sounds like a good one. I’ll be back in time to pick you up from work.”

Raymond’s old car was sitting up on blocks behind his apartment. He’d been working on it, but it wasn’t running. Ruth thought quickly. She had customers waiting.

“Well, how did you get here?”

“A guy I know dropped me off on his way to work. I wouldn’t ask you, Ruth, if I had any other way to get there.”

He’d told her several times what a proud man he was, how he hated to ask for things. She remembered him saying it just last week when he’d borrowed twenty dollars to hold him until his unemployment check came through. Pride was important to Ruth, too.

“Sure.” She reached under the counter for her purse. “Just be sure to get back in time to pick me up.”

Raymond accepted the keys. He studied his hands on the counter, and his voice was so low that she had to lean forward to hear it. “I got to ask you for another ten, Ruth, just in case I need it. I know I already owe you. I’ll pay you back, I swear, just as soon as I’m on my feet again.”

When Ruth handed him the bill he squeezed her hand. “I’m gonna get that job. Then I’m gonna take care of you in style, I promise.”

“Watch out for the speedometer,” Ruth said. “It’s broken.”

Vonda was at her shoulder before Raymond was out of sight. “So how come I didn’t get to meet him?” she asked slyly.

Ruth hurried to shove a wedge of pie before a customer who’d been tapping his fingers on the counter. “He was in a hurry. On his way to a job interview.”

Vonda’s eyes were following him. “He looks nice. Good build. I think you stumbled onto something there.”

Then everyone got busy. Ruth didn’t have a minute to think until she took her coffee break, sliding onto the far stool at the counter with her back wedged against the wall. Instantly Cookie slid to a stop across from her, wiping a spot on the counter at Ruth’s elbow.

“Was that Raymond?” she asked without looking up.

“Yeah,” Ruth said. She was feeling a little uneasy and didn’t know why.

“He from around here?” Cookie asked.

“Now he is. Came here from Omaha about a month ago.”

Cookie wiped some more. Ruth had never known her to stay in one spot for so long.

“Got something on your mind, Cookie?”

Pale blue eyes lifted slowly. Cookie had a dried spot of meringue on one cheek. She looked troubled.

“You’ve only known him for a month?”

“About that,” Ruth said. “Why?”

“What’s his last name?”

“Lewis,” Ruth answered with irritation. “What’s with all the questions?”

Cookie took a deep breath. “Now don’t get mad, but they show things all the time on Lookout, about guys making up to single women for their money, then cheating them out of it, sometimes even killing them.” She was building up steam, eyes wide, freckles jumping. “You got to be careful, Ruth. How much do you know about him?”

Ruth couldn’t help herself; she had to laugh. “Oh, Cookie. You think Raymond — hey, do I look like someone who’s got wads of money stashed away? I’ve got all I can manage to keep myself in support hose. Honestly, where do you come up with these things?”

Cookie paled, but she didn’t go away. She leaned closer. “Have you ever seen anything proving he’s Raymond Lewis? A birth certificate or driver’s license?”

“You mean I should have asked for some ID?”

Cookie flinched. Ruth hadn’t intended to sound so harsh. “Look,” she said in a kinder tone, “thanks for caring, but I can watch out for myself. Raymond’s touchy about talking about himself, okay? To tell the truth, I think he’s younger than I am and he doesn’t want me to know.”

Neither had noticed Vonda edging closer to their conversation until she was standing beside Ruth’s stool.

“Girl, I swear you’ve got to stop watching that TV show,” she told Cookie. “I thought I was born suspicious, but you’ve got me beat. Stop bugging Ruth. You think Raymond’s a mass murderer or something?”

Cookie faded before their indignance, but she wasn’t finished. Her jaw set. “He looked familiar,” she said stubbornly. “As soon as I laid eyes on him I thought I’d seen him before.”

“Dammit, Cookie!” Ruth began, but just then Arthur Woolsey scuttled into the shop on one of his routine checks.

“Hello, girls,” he greeted them as he passed. “Cookie, I wonder if you could help me out in the back for a second.”

Cookie hesitated, tom between breaking into her usual obedient trot or staying to respond to Ruth.

“Oh-oh,” Vonda said with a wicked grin. “He wants you out back, Cookie. I think he just plain wants you, Artie does.”

It jarred Cookie’s concentration. “Artie?” she giggled, startled. “Vonda, he’s old enough to be my dad!” Then she spun away. “But just remember what I said, Ruth. Honest, I know I’ve seen Raymond somewhere.”

Her break over, Ruth hauled herself down from the stool. “What’re we going to do with that girl?”

“Get her a life,” Vonda responded darkly. “Wish we could locate that Buddy and drag his behind back where it belongs. That boy’s got some nerve, doing this to us.”

Raymond didn’t get the job across the river in Illinois. Something about the plant manager’s wife promising it to her nephew. Raymond was philosophical, though. Something would come along.

On Sunday, Ruth invited him to dinner. While the spaghetti sauce cooked, she tossed salad, watching him through the kitchen window tossing a football with Mike and Andy in the backyard. It was a pleasant, homey scene — made her feel good to watch it. The boys were certainly having fun. Ruth wanted to enjoy her growing feelings for this big man, but niggle niggle went the doubts in the back of her mind. And that was Cookie’s fault.

The kids went off after dinner to do homework. Raymond offered to dry dishes.

“You’ve done a good job with those boys, Ruth,” he said. His nice voice warmed her, raised goosebumps on her arms. But she could imagine Cookie giving her a warning nudge in the ribs.

“It wasn’t all easy,” she said. “But I learned a woman can do it if she hangs in there.”

Raymond’s eyes were soft behind his horn-rimmed glasses. “They could sure use a man in their lives right about now, though.”

Ruth whipped the suds in the sink to a fine froth while she tried to think what to say. Niggle niggle went the dark places in her brain.

“I think a lot of you, Ruth,” Raymond went on, drying slowly and methodically. “You’re just about the best thing that ever happened to me. And I get the feeling you like me, too. That right?”

He was standing very close, his big shoulder pressing hers. Ruth’s hands began to shake. She was melting.

“Yeah, I like you.” But she didn’t look at him, choosing to scour hell out of a crusted spot on a pan instead.

His head bent to hers. “You know, if I moved in here, we could have us a real family. I’d give up my apartment, we’d throw our money in together. Be easier for both of us, wouldn’t you say?”

She’d say yes — except for that damned niggle. What money? Raymond didn’t have a job. There didn’t seem to be a hot prospect for one either, and he was already in to her for thirty dollars in just one week. Carefully, she eased her shoulder away.

“Boy, I don’t know. That’s a big step, Raymond. We haven’t known each other very long.”

She looked up then, into his warm brown eyes. They were smiling.

“Ruth, you got any questions, just ask. What do you want to know about me?”

She was on the verge of asking to see his driver’s license when she bit her tongue. She could almost feel Cookie breathing down her neck.

“I don’t mean I want to poke into your life,” she said finally. Take that, Cookie. “I just — maybe we’re not ready for that! Maybe we need to get to know one another better first.”

Raymond didn’t answer for a moment. Then he put his arm around her and gave her a quick hug.

“I get what you’re saying. You’re a smart lady, Ruth. I already know how I feel, but if that’s the way you want it, that’s what we’ll do. I can wait.”

Relieved, Ruth bathed him in a big smile. Cookie was all wet. This was a good guy, a kind and understanding man.

On Monday, Cookie accosted Ruth at full gallop as she walked through the coffee shop’s door.

“Can we take our first break together? I’ve got something to tell you. It’s really important, okay?”

Cookie hadn’t even started work yet and already there was a glob of something on her sleeve. Suddenly Ruth felt tired.

“Yeah, okay,” she sighed.

“She came in wild-eyed,” Vonda murmured in passing. “It doesn’t look good, Ruth. Yell if you need me.”

When they finally found time to sit down with a cup of coffee, Cookie wasted no time.

“Now listen,” she began, leaning across their back table to hold Ruth’s attention. “I spent all yesterday going through my Lookout tapes.” She retreated slightly as Ruth lowered a look on her. “Now hear me out before you start yelling. I feel bad about this, but you’re my friend and I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Her freckles looked alive, shivering in place. “I think I found him. Honest to God, I think I found Raymond.”

Ruth had to work at swallowing her anger. “You think?” she asked softly.

Cookie nodded. “He’s not an easy one. No tattoos or identifying marks. He doesn’t have glasses on the tape. No beard either. Little thinner, and his hair’s different, but I swear it’s Raymond. I want you to come over after work tonight and see.” Leaning closer, she lowered her voice. “He’s wanted in three states, for just what I told you. Cheating women out of their money. Hasn’t killed anyone yet, but—” she shuddered “—you never know.”

The thought of Raymond killing someone restored Ruth’s sense of humor. She didn’t bother to hide her grin. “So he’s skinnier, no beard, not wearing glasses,” she said. “And his hair’s different. Boy, that sounds just like Raymond, Cookie. You got him.”

Blotched pink colored Cookie’s face. “You don’t understand what these guys do to keep from getting caught,” she insisted with an air of authority. Now she was in a huff. “If you don’t want to know the truth, that’s fine. I’m just trying to help.”

Ruth relented. “Okay. If I come over, look at your tapes, and tell you it’s not Raymond, will you let go of it, Cookie? Will you leave it alone?”

Cookie brightened. “I will. I promise. But I’m afraid you’re in for a mean surprise. And I’m sorry about that.”

Their break was over. Ruth got wearily to her feet. “Vonda’s had a good look at him. Can she come?”

“Sure,” Cookie said. “I was going to ask her anyway.”

Vonda was more than willing. “This is kind of exciting. Better than listening to Carlisle talk about root canals. Come on, Ruth, relax. You know it’s not Raymond. This will shut her up.”

Artie seemed disappointed that they didn’t hang around a few minutes after closing. Sometimes they did, and he liked their company.

“Not tonight, Artie,” Vonda told him with a squeeze. “We’re on a secret mission.”

Cookie rode with Ruth. Vonda tailed them, wickedly blinking her headlights periodically and flashing hand code signals for Ruth to see in her rearview mirror. It made Ruth laugh. She was glad Vonda was coming along.

Cookie rode with her long neck craned into the windshield, staring intently at everyone she saw.

“My place is a mess,” she ventured once. “Little Bud’s been teething, keeps me up half the night. I just can’t find the time to clean things up.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ruth said. God, she hoped Raymond never found out about this. It was too strange.

Cookie’s building was a dark little fourplex on a narrow, winding street. Broken streetlights only added to the gloom of the late-night surroundings. She let Vonda and Ruth into her second-floor apartment, where they waited while she went next door to pick up Little Bud from the neighbor who watched him.

Vonda took a long slow look around. “Poor kid. I’d like to get my hands on Buddy, wouldn’t you?”

Ruth was examining a cluster of snapshots taped to the faded wall. “This must be him with Cookie and the baby.”

They peered at it together in the dim overhead light. “No chin,” Vonda said, disgusted. “I knew it — a real loser.”

Little Bud was sleepy when his mother carried him home, but the sight of visitors snapped his eyes open. Vonda held out her arms and he leaned forward instantly to fall into them.

“Oh, he likes you,” Cookie smiled. “Could you hold him until I get his juice? Then he’ll go right off to sleep.”

“Sure,” Vonda said. “I’m a sucker for babies.” Fat Little Bud reached up to pat her face.

Ruth was trying not to look at the new TV set with its stacked tapes sitting alongside. She didn’t want to look at the sorry, saggy furnishings either. She wanted to go home.

“Nice place, Cookie,” she said, pumping sincerity into her voice.

Cookie’s head was deep into a grumbling old refrigerator. “It looks good when it’s gussied up. Buddy was real lucky to find it.”

Ruth met Vonda’s raised eyebrows. “Is this Buddy with you and the baby?” Ruth asked.

Cookie retrieved Little Bud, balancing him on one bony hip while she smiled fondly at the picture on the wall. “That’s him. I’ll sure be glad when he gets himself back here.”

Sucking greedily at his bottle, Little Bud was carried into the bedroom to be deposited into a rickety old crib. The crib and Cookie’s lopsided bed were the only furnishings Ruth could see in the room.

“Look at this place,” Vonda said in a low voice. “But Cookie seems really happy, doesn’t she?”

Ruth nodded. Side by side, they settled uneasily onto a faded floral couch.

“About the guy downstairs,” Vonda called to Cookie finally, after an awkward silence. “You still after him?”

Cookie stopped cooing to the baby. “You know what he did? Moved out yesterday, just like that. Makes me mad. I wonder if he knew I was on to him.”

“I’ll bet that’s it,” Vonda said.

Ruth gave her a poke. “Quit that. Stop encouraging her,” she muttered.

Vonda smiled uncertainly. “I know I shouldn’t. But, Ruth, you think crazy’s catching? I swear, she’s got me looking at people now and I don’t even watch that show!”

Little Bud settled in, quiet. No more avoiding it. Cookie squatted beside her TV and picked the top tape from the stack. She glanced across at Ruth. “You ready?”

“Of course I’m ready!” Ruth snapped before she could stop herself. “I’m here, aren’t I? Let’s get it over with.”

Vonda squeezed her hand. “Okay,” Cookie said. “It’ll take a minute. He’s the second one on here.”

As the tape fast-forwarded, Ruth found herself beginning to sweat. That made her mad. She was starting to act as nutty as Cookie.

“Here it is,” Cookie said.

The tape flashed onto a mug shot of a man, his face filling the screen. Small, fine-boned, peering out from behind thick-lensed glasses. He wore a wispy little beard and moustache, both of which contained more hair than did his shining scalp. Ruth had just enough time to read the charge — embezzlement — before she started to laugh. “Well, you convinced me, Cookie. That’s Raymond, all right. I’d know him anywhere.”

Aghast, Cookie stared at the screen. She banged her forehead with an open palm. “Boy, am I dumb! That’s the wrong tape. I thought I put Raymond right on top.”

She jerked the tape out, picked up the second one, and read its label. “Here it is.” Helpless laughter was still fizzing in Ruth. Vonda gave her a conspiratorial grin.

Cookie was fast-forwarding again. “This is the one.”

Another face appeared on the screen. Silence thudded. Ruth stopped breathing. A young face, full mouth set, broad brow overlooking steady dark eyes. Clean-shaven cheeks and chin, hair lighter than Raymond’s — a nice face, one that would draw women. Obviously, considering his charges. Several aliases were listed, none of them Raymond Lewis. Ruth searched every feature of the face. A resemblance, maybe, but not Raymond. Definitely not.

Cookie was bouncing on her heels. “Well?” her little voice asked. “It’s him, isn’t it? He’s younger here, I know, but — come on, Ruth, what do you think?”

Ruth felt relief. “I think it’s someone else. Looks a little like him, but it’s some other guy. Okay, Cookie? Now will you let it rest?”

Cookie shot to her feet. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but just look at him. The eyes, the forehead. Look at those ears. Vonda, how about you?”

Vonda was silent. Ruth turned to her. “Well, Vonda?”

Her friend looked slightly shaken. “I don’t know, Ruth. I’m trying to picture him in a beard and glasses. Add a few pounds. It’s spooky. I think Cookie just may be right.”

Ruth’s jaw dropped. She was on her feet without knowing it. “I don’t believe this. Okay, I’ve had enough. You two! Never mind, I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m going home.”

Above her old car’s rattles and groans, she talked to herself as she charged through the streets of St. Louis. Maybe a resemblance. A slight one. But not Raymond. Absolutely not.

And there he was when she got home, sprawled on the sofa watching TV. His horn-rimmed glasses were pushed to the top of his head and he smiled a warm welcome. “You’re late. Want some coffee?”

“I got caught in traffic,” Ruth said. “Didn’t expect you to be here.”

“Just wanted to come by and see you,” Raymond said.

In the kitchen, she stared at the wall until she heard him ambling in, then reached blindly for the first thing she could find in her cabinet. When he stopped behind her, she turned and lifted the glasses from his head.

“Let me borrow these a minute. Can’t read this label and I’m too tired to dig mine out.”

“Hey!” he protested, making a playful grab for them, but Ruth leaned away. His gentle hands began to massage the back of her neck.

“Hon, if you’ve got it I need to borrow a few dollars,” he breathed just behind her ear. “Got another interview tomorrow. I think this one is it.”

Ruth didn’t answer. She was reading the label through Raymond’s glasses — through lenses as clear as window glass.

They huddled together in the back booth during the late quiet hours of evening. Ruth had told them about Raymond’s phoney glasses. She was feeling rotten. They’d been right and she was wrong.

“So what do we do now?” Vonda asked.

Cookie’s knees jiggled under the table. She’d been helping Artie in his little office and her fingers were smeared with stamp-pad ink.

“Get something on him,” she suggested eagerly. “But it has to be surefire before we call.” Helpfully, she added, “I know the number. I’ve got it memorized.”

“I can’t get him to talk about himself,” Ruth said. “He just clams up.”

Vonda made a little sound. Two heads turned to her. She was smiling broadly.

“Something foolproof,” she said. Triumphantly, she snatched up one of Cookie’s ink-stained hands. “Fingerprints.” Her eyes met Ruth’s. “Something he handles in your house. The kitchen — a glass or cup or something.”

Ruth turned cold. “I can’t. We all handle things. I... I wouldn’t know how to do it.”

“I know how,” Cookie volunteered. “I read up on it. I could tell you what to do.”

“No.” Ruth shook her head firmly. “I don’t want to do it.”

Vonda’s eyes narrowed decisively. “Then we’ll do it here. Get Raymond in here.” She straightened. “Oh, listen to this. Carlisle’s got a cousin on the police force. I’ll bet he could get the lab work done for us. As a quiet favor, if you know what I mean. What do you say, Ruth?”

Torn, Ruth looked from one to the other. It seemed so sneaky. Then she thought of Raymond making a fool of her. “What do I have to do?” she asked.

They sent Cookie for Artie’s permission to throw a small surprise party for Raymond’s birthday after hours the following day. Artie couldn’t say no to Cookie. He seemed a little sad that they didn’t invite him, too, but he gave his okay.

“Just clean up after, girls. I’m trusting you.”

To get Raymond into the coffee shop, Ruth asked him to take her car to have its tires rotated, then pick her up from work.

They rehearsed the plan forwards and backwards, until Ruth was sick of the sound of it. Occasionally she wavered, and Vonda would have to reinforce her sense of civic duty. Then they’d go over the plan again.

The final hour before closing seemed endless. Cookie was a frenzy of motion, knocking over or dropping everything she touched. Even Vonda, usually unflappable, looked tense and bright-eyed. Ruth felt like a sleepwalker. It didn’t seem real, none of it. How had this happened? Artie didn’t help things either, lingering, hovering, stacking glasses on the counter work area long after he should have been gone. Probably hoping they’d still invite him.

“I’m afraid I’m going to slip and let Artie know it’s not really Raymond’s birthday,” Cookie whispered once as she zoomed past them at the speed of light.

“You’d better not!” Vonda hissed. “Stay away from him. Just don’t talk.” And she began to stare at Artie, tapping her foot, until the little man crumbled and bade them good night.

Within minutes, Raymond rapped at the door. “Here we go, kids,” Vonda muttered as Ruth hurried to let him in.

If Raymond was surprised by the enthusiastic reception he received, he didn’t show it. He let Ruth lead him to the counter where Cookie and Vonda waited, glad smiles in place.

“Artie’s already gone,” Ruth recited carefully. “We were just going to finish the coffee. Want some?”

“Sure.” Raymond shared his warm smile among them. “Don’t mind if I do.”

As Vonda turned to reach for mugs, Cookie made a strangled sound. Vonda froze. Cookie looked stricken. “I forgot. I cleaned the coffee machine,” she said.

Vonda’s look was so comically ferocious that Ruth would have laughed if she hadn’t felt the floor opening under her. Count on Cookie. After all the planning, she hadn’t remembered a thing.

But Vonda was quick. “Then how about a beer? Want a beer instead, Raymond?”

Raymond was still smiling. “Hey, that sounds good.”

“Me, too,” Ruth said. “I’ll have a beer.”

“I don’t like beer,” Cookie said softly. Vonda turned on her so savagely that she started a breeze. Cookie blinked. “But I’ll have one anyway.”

Ruth looked at Vonda’s steady hands pouring beer and her own began to shake. Cookie watched Raymond. Seating herself next to him, Ruth made formal introductions across the counter, listening to his easy talk begin, smooth, unsuspecting. She almost felt sorry for him.

Time passed in a blur. She didn’t know how many minutes went by while she watched Raymond’s strong fingers clasp and unclasp around his glass, until suddenly he was standing, saying, “Well, thanks for the beer. And nice to meet you ladies. We’d better go, Ruth. You got a rest room I can hit first?”

Dumbly, Ruth pointed, and they watched him wend his way through tables until he disappeared. Vonda slumped across the counter, clasping Ruth’s hands.

“I’ve got sweat running down my back like a waterfall,” she said, breaking into a breathless giggle.

Ruth shook her head. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

The clink of glasses caught their attention. Cookie had gathered the empties and placed them carefully on the back counter. Vonda drew an audible breath through her nose.

“Cookie, what’re you doing?” she asked gently.

Cookie looked smug. “Setting them over here so nothing happens to them.”

Vonda nodded. “And I suppose you know which one was Raymond’s?”

There was a short silence while they all looked at the four glasses. Then, “Omigod,” Cookie said.

Ruth knew Vonda might kill if she didn’t do something fast. “Wait. It’s okay,” she said. “Just put each one in a separate plastic bag. They’ll all have to be tested.”

Apparently, Vonda was unable to speak, and Raymond was coming towards them again. Ruth let him see her friendly smile settle on Cookie. “And, Cookie, if I were you I’d get out of here before Vonda comes to.”

The wait was agonizing. Five days passed and still no word from the lab.

“Not much we can do,” Vonda kept repeating. “They’re doing us a favor, after all.”

They were all on edge. The time Ruth spent with Raymond was almost unbearable. He still had no job. The last time he’d asked Ruth for money, she told him she couldn’t spare it. Something had to happen soon.

She didn’t notice Vonda take a phone call early that evening, wasn’t aware of the electricity in the air until she saw her tall friend striding towards her, holding Cookie’s arm firmly in tow.

“To the back booth,” Vonda whispered as she passed. “The customers can wait. This is it.”

They crunched together as close as they could get. Vonda was breathing hard. “The lab called. They’ve got a make.”

Ruth’s heart lurched. “If I could turn pale, I’d look like a ghost,” Vonda went on. “Thanks to Cookie, we got us a crook. But you won’t believe it. None of the prints matched a wanted except one.” She reached for Ruth’s hand. “And it’s not Raymond. The match came from prints that showed up on all four glasses. And they weren’t ours, either.”

Ruth flashed on a clear image of clean, shining glasses being stacked on a rear counter. A blinding light went off in her head, revealing another instant picture. The wrong tape on Cookie’s VCR, the face of an insignificant little man with a struggling beard and shiny dome.

Three shocked voices sounded as one. “Artie!”

They heard that Arthur Woolsey, real name William Arthur, surrendered without argument when the police knocked at his door. Artie wasn’t violent, he was just a thief.

After a day’s closing, Ruth and Vonda returned to work to find the shop under temporary administrative management. Cookie was nowhere in sight.

“Poor Artie,” Vonda said. “It’ll break his heart if he finds out Cookie turned him in.”

They had also learned that one of the blue-chip companies from whom Artie had lifted a bundle had posted a reward. Cookie’s dream come true. They called to tell her it was all hers.

“But you both helped,” Cookie had protested.

Vonda was insistent. “This was all your idea. Take it. Put Little Bud through college.”

Cookie sounded on the verge of tears. “I’m so lucky to have you for friends,” she’d said.

Now Ruth glanced back at the closed door to Artie’s office. “I’ll bet they’re going through our books, too.”

“I’m sure.” Vonda grinned. “Can you believe us? We all saw Artie on TV and didn’t even recognize him. Pretty sharp. I feel bad about trying to stick it to Raymond, though.”

Ruth drew a deep breath. “Well, it worked out for the best. Made me get off my behind and back Raymond against the wall. Made him talk. That man hasn’t had a regular job in years. Just doesn’t like to work, he says. Moves in with women like me and mooches. You want to hear something? That’s why he wears those dumb glasses. He admitted it — thinks they appeal to older women.”

Vonda winced. “He said that?”

“Yup. Wasn’t even mad when I showed him the door. Just said he was sorry it didn’t work out. Like he’d been doing me a favor. I tell you, Raymond may not have been on Cookie’s TV show, but he is one slick deadbeat.”

“Aw, Ruth,” Vonda said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Maybe I’ll meet a good guy someday, but right now I’m doing okay on my own. And I always knew Raymond was just too good to be true.”

Vonda glanced through the shop’s glass front. “Here comes the roadrunner.”

Cookie was forging through the terminal, hair flying, waving vigorously when she saw them. Both women waved back.

She was out of breath when she arrived. “You won’t believe what I just saw,” she gasped out. “There’s a new guy at the newsstand back there. I took one look at him and I—”

In concert, Ruth and Vonda swiveled on their heels.

“You got a customer, Ruth,” Vonda said. “Better get to him, don’t you think?”

“I do think.” Ruth peeled left. “Will you go out to the storeroom and bring up some straws for the fountain?”

“Girl, I’d be glad to.” Peeling right, Vonda shot away.

“Ruth? Vonda? Hey!” Cookie said.

A Statesman’s Touch

by Robert Barnard

With seven Edgar nominations to his credit, Robert Barnard must be placed with the leading crime writers of our day. Publishers Weekly called his recent novel Fatal Attachment “another gem.”

* * *

“Mais c’est incroyable!”

The hotel manager looked down towards his beautifully shod feet with an expression more of distaste than of disbelief. The head porter, who had summoned him, thought to himself that if you find a trickle of blood seeping under the door of one of the bedrooms into the corridor, it is not altogether surprising to discover a corpse behind the door, or to find that the corpse was murdered. But, as an intelligent man, he held his peace.

“It’s that man Radovan Radič,” said the manager, his mouth twisting as he looked down at the body with the gaping wound between its shoulders.

“A Bulgarian, wasn’t he?” the porter asked.

“Serbian, I believe. But Serbian, Bulgarian, Hungarian — they’re all the same. Brutes!” He looked around the spare, ill-furnished room, one of their cheapest. “I only know of this creature because the police were around asking about him last week.”

“Illegal resident?”

“Worse, much worse. Apparently he was a thoroughly unsavoury character. All sorts of activities, including blackmail. He had been touting letters from Marie of Romania.”

“Ah — to Prince Stirbey?”

“No, not that old story. Something more recent. They thought it possible he was an agent of the King of Serbia, but on balance they thought he was acting for his own ends. I was all for throwing him out onto the street at once, but the Sûreté begged me not to. Here they could keep an eye on him, they said. I wish now that I had insisted, but when the Sûreté begs...”

“Of course. In our position one obeys. Who have we in the hotel tonight?”

“Ah, that is the question.”

It was indeed. The Hotel George IV, formerly the Imperial, situated on the Avenue Decazes, had carved for itself a minor but vital role in the diplomatic comings and goings of that year 1919, the year of the Peace Conference. Paris was awash with kings, statesmen, and mere politicians, not to mention the attendant diplomats, secretaries, and the inevitable newspapermen. Behind the ceremonial and the open negotiations there mushroomed encounters of a more personal nature. The George IV catered, discreetly, for any assignation, whether political, romantic, or frankly sexual, that the participants wished to keep from the gaze of the public or of rival statesmen. The hotel’s system of backstairs access and private corridors was unrivalled in the French capital, and the manager was formidably discreet. He already regretted the renaming of the hotel, which had been done in the hope of profiting by a confusion with the new and magnificent George V. The hotel had found a quite different and much more lucrative identity, and would have benefited from a more anonymous name. That very morning an English visitor had commented cheerily that the only connection George IV had had with France had been his delusion that he led the allied troops at the Battle of Waterloo. The manager’s demeanour had been glacial. It was the height of bad taste to mention the Battle of Waterloo in Paris.

He now enumerated the hotel’s more sensitive guests, strictly in order of rank.

“The King of Spain is in Suite Fifteen with a woman who is not his mistress.”

“Madame Grigot would raise hell if she knew.”

“Quite... Alfonso XIII — such an unlucky number. I’m surprised his mother chose the name.”

The head porter caught his drift.

“Spain remained neutral during the course of the war,” he remarked.

“Very profitably neutral. His Majesty was a noncombatant, at least on the field of battle... I think, you know, that we need take no special steps where His Majesty is concerned.”

The head porter nodded sage agreement.

“Then there is the President of the United States. He is in Suite Seven with the Prime Minister of Italy.”

“There is no question of—?”

“No, no. Out of the question. The president has no such inclinations. Mrs. Wilson would never allow it. They are engaged in extremely sensitive discussions concerning Italy’s new borders in the Tyrol. They will have to be informed.”

“Of course.”

“And then there is the Prime Minister of Great Britain...”

“Ah yes. Mr. Lloyd-George.”

The head porter of the George IV naturally managed “George” more or less in the English manner, but “Lloyd” came out as “Lo-id”. He was, nevertheless, extremely familiar with the name.

“Yes. With a most attractive woman of a certain age. I escorted them personally to Suite Twelve, his favourite suite. The prime minister’s patronage is of course an honour to the hotel...”

“Naturally.”

“Though it is not an honour we can proclaim...”

“Except discreetly.”

“Exactly. We proclaim it discreetly. Mr. Lloyd-George must of course be told before the police are summoned... Who else? The Belgian ambassador, the Latvian chargé d’affaires, the Australian foreign minister, all with ladies. They can be informed. For the rest, diplomats, members of various parliaments — they must take their chance. We will inform them if we can, but before too long, for our good name, we must summon the Sûreté. Mon dieu! They said they wished to keep an eye on him! What an eye!”

And leaving the head porter on guard outside the door, with instructions to inform any curious guests that there had been an unfortunate accident, the manager bustled off in his stately fashion to alert his guests.

In Suite Fifteen, the young dancer whose name was unknown to him lay under the King of Spain and thought rapturously that it really was something, to be pleasured by a king. The pleasure was undisturbed by any call from the hotel management.

In Suite Seven, the President of the United States of America put down the telephone and rose.

“Mr. Prime Minister, this has been a most interesting and productive meeting, and we have made real, very real progress, but I regret that it must come to an end.”

The president’s interpreter, who looked like a Mafia boss but who was in fact a Harvard professor, rose to his feet, but the Italian prime minister remained seated and looked petulant.

“But Mr. President, I wish to protest about Merano—”

“I’m afraid that there has been a murder in the hotel. Some scruffy little Balkan muckraker. It would greatly harm me in the American press if it were thought that I were making secret deals — coming to unofficial understandings — with a foreign power. No doubt the Italian press feels similarly strongly.”

It didn’t, but the Italian prime minister got to his feet.

“Of course. And my king is very touchy about his prerogative in matters of foreign policy.”

“Ah, I think I have met your king. A very small man, I seem to recollect.”

“But touchy accordingly. You are right, Mr. President: we should be gone.”

“Why don’t you stay, Giuliano? You could go through what we’ve already agreed on. No scandal in your being here.”

And the president and the prime minister opened the door onto the backstairs corridors and scuttled out. In minutes they were in two taxis which the manager had summoned for them, speeding back to their respective hotels.

In Suite Twelve, the British prime minister was more relaxed than the American president.

“Yes, I’m alone.” He flicked his tongue around his lips. His companion for the night had just returned from her maid’s room, and had said with a coquettish smile: “Ten minutes!” He could hardly wait. “The lady is preparing herself,” he told the manager.

“Mr. Lloyd-George, I am desolated to have to tell you that there has been a murder—”

“A murder? In this hotel?”

“Yes indeed. A Balkan adventurer of the most dubious kind.”

“A Balkan adventurer? Do you mean a gigolo?”

“No, no. A Serbian with a criminal bent. Perhaps it is best for you not to know the details.”

“Perhaps it is.”

“So I wondered whether you and the most charming lady would wish to... remove yourselves from any intrusiveness on the part of the police?”

“Hmmm... You have not yet called the police?”

“No indeed. I informed you first, Mr. Prime Minister.”

“Obliged to you. Hmmmm. I have a certain... experience in handling tricky matters of this kind.”

“Your statesmanship is known to all, sir.”

“Leave it with me for ten minutes or so. I may be able to advise you how to handle this. Suggest something to... to safeguard the reputation of the hotel.”

“Of the hotel, of course, Mr. Prime Minister.”

In his office on the ground floor of the George IV, the manager fumed at the well-known hypocrisy of the English. To pretend that he was thinking of a solution to the hotel’s crisis, when all he wanted from the period of grace was — what he had come for in the first place. How truly perfidious was Albion!

In Suite Fifteen, the nameless young dancer, once more under the King of Spain, was deciding that it was even more extraordinary than she had thought, being pleasured by a king.

In Suite Seven, Professor Giuliano, master now of a luxurious suite, wished he could have taken advantage of the well-known freedoms of the Hotel George IV. But with police in the offing that was hardly on the cards. With a sigh he returned to the maps of Southern Europe that had been occupying his master and his guest. He took hold of the carafe of barley water that Mr. Wilson had been drinking, then changed his mind and poured a glass of the prime minister’s French champagne. As he sipped, he looked down at the maps on the desk and a new expression came over his face.

In Suite Twelve, Mr. Lloyd-George took up the phone.

“Mr. Manager? Suite twelve here. Now, you said this Johnnie was Serbian, did you not?”

“Yes, Mr. Lloyd-George. What I believe we are now to call Yugoslavian.”

“Well, we shall see about that. But it’s a good point. Got any of his fellow-countrymen on your staff, have you? Or anyone else from the Balkans? Very quarrelsome people, the Eastern Europeans. Or even a North African might do.”

“I believe there is someone in the kitchens — let me see, I think there is somebody from Croatia.”

“Capital. Part of the new kingdom.”

“I seem to remember he is one of the meat chefs.”

“With the skills of a butcher, then? Even better. I wouldn’t mind betting his passport is not in order.”

“It does often happen that people will work for less if we... turn a blind eye.”

“Quite. Well, offer him a good sum of money — what’s a thousand pounds in francs? — and tell him to disappear.”

“Ah, you mean—?”

“It will be unimaginable riches to him. He’ll take himself off and become a rich man in his own country. You don’t need to do anything more. Tell the police he’s disappeared, and they’ll jump at it. Crime solved, with no effort. Suspicious foreigner — everyone’s happy. They won’t trouble anyone else, if the solution’s handed to them on a plate.”

“I do believe, Mr. Prime Minister, that you’re right.”

“Of course I am. And there’ll be no scandal attached to the hotel. We all want that, don’t we? Let me know how things go.”

As he put down the phone, the door to the bedroom opened, and a vision in rustling silks swept through.

“My dear!” said Mr. Lloyd-George appreciatively.

The men from the Sûreté behaved in a way that at first bordered on the surly.

“This is the man Radič,” said the inspector, looking at the body on the floor with disgust.

“It is. I wanted to throw him out.”

“We told you to keep an eye on him.”

“You said that you would keep an eye on him.”

“That’s what we meant. My Clod! With this man’s record it could be anyone — and possibly one of the highest in Europe. Or of course one of their hirelings...”

“It occurred to me—” began the manager.

“Yes?”

“Did you not say that the man was possibly in the pay of the King of Serbia?”

“It was one of the possibilities.”

“And has he not recently proclaimed himself king of a country called Yugoslavia?”

“Lord knows. Who understands what goes on down there? I have an idea you’re right.”

“It is a very quarrelsome part of the world...”

“They’re always at it. Love, war, love, war.”

“It is, after all, where the late conflict began.”

The inspector nodded sagely.

“It is. If the archduke were alive today, so would a hell of a lot more people be.”

“Exactly. So I wondered if someone of one of the other nationalities that the king has annexed to his new kingdom, perhaps in a quarrel with this unsavoury character...”

The inspector considered.

“You have someone from the region staying in the hotel?”

“Staying here? Heavens above, one was enough! It is, I believe, a poverty-stricken hole. But in our kitchens...”

“Ah. Someone without papers, no doubt.”

The manager gesticulated.

“His papers seemed in order—”

“Who is this man?”

“He is one of the assistant meat chefs — a lowly position.”

“I think we must talk to this man. What nationality did you say he was?”

“I believe Croatian.”

“Who knows where these places are? But it is down there somewhere. Lead on, Mr. Manager.”

Preceded by the manager, the policemen trooped along dingy corridors, up staircases and then more staircases until they came to a long, low attic which served as a sort of dormitory for the lower members of staff. Watched surreptitiously by Turkish, Portuguese, Bulgarian, and Algerian eyes, silently beseeching that their papers not be asked for, fearful of being sent back from the squalor that they lived in to the greater squalor they had come from, the little army marched nearly the length of the dimly lit room.

“Ah, see!” said the manager, greatly surprised. “He is gone!”

The bed was neatly made. From the rough cupboard beside it all trace of the occupant had been removed.

“This, evidently, is our man. Come, Mr. Manager, and give us all the details on him that you have.”

The little army turned, walked the narrow space between the rows of beds, and began the long trek down to the manager’s office. As the door to the attic closed, there could be heard a great sigh of relief in several languages.

In Suite Fifteen, the admiration of the nameless dancer had gradually turned to rage. This was too much! How many times was it now? She had lost count. Bang, snore, bang, snore, bang, snore. She felt like a leaky bicycle tyre. This was being treated like a common prostitute. And at the end, she wouldn’t even get paid, probably. Come the dawn and it would be, “Adieu, ma petite,” and that would be that. Le roi le veut. Well, she’d had enough. What had been an honour had become a tedious hassle. Fortunately, the king was now in a snore phase.

She got up, but before she put her clothes on she peeped out the door. The first things that met her eye were the backs of two stalwart gendarmes bearing something covered with a sheet away on a stretcher. Turning her head, she saw two more gossiping at the other end of the corridor. Police in the hotel! An inconspicuous departure would be quite impossible. She sighed. Better stick it out.

On the bed, the snores lessened in volume. The king stirred.

In Suite Seven, Professor Giuliano contemplated his handiwork. The map the president and the prime minister had worked on lay to his left hand, a red line stretching halfway across the thigh at the top of the leg of Italy, breaking off when their work had been interrupted. The new border between Italy and the defeated Austria. At Professor Giuliano’s right hand was a duplicate map, unused in the negotiations, on which he had drawn a new red line, mostly identical, but which now veered north at a crucial point, to put on the Italian side Merano and a rich area of Alpine villages, woods, and grazing lands. He took the map on his left and the suite’s heavy table lighter over to the grate and set fire to a corner. When he was satisfied it was entirely burned, he went back to the desk and poured himself another glass of champagne. Being born in New York did not mean he was not still a patriotic Italian. He smiled with professorial self-esteem: it was a brilliant stroke, worthy of his father, the Mafia boss.

As the first rays of dawn struck the Avenue Decazes, the phone rang in Suite Twelve. The British prime minister had always impressed on the manager that, should anything of importance arise, he should always be rung. “If I am busy, I simply don’t answer,” he had said. Now he was already dressed and in the sitting room, while his companion completed her morning toilette in the bedroom.

“Mr. Prime Minister?” said the manager. “I thought I should tell you that, thanks to your brilliant suggestion, everything went like a dream.”

“Glad to hear it. All it needed was a touch of statesmanship.”

“The police accepted absolutely my interpretation of the unfortunate event and the man’s disappearance.”

“Of course they did. Less trouble.”

“The man will by now have evaporated, and the case is in effect closed.”

“Splendid.”

“The police have now left the hotel, and you and your charming guest can leave without arousing any impertinent curiosity.”

“Excellent. I think I hear her coming now. Call two taxis, will you?”

The door from the bedroom had indeed opened, and sailing through, dressed for her morning activities, came the lovely woman of a certain age who had shared the prime minister’s night. He gazed at her appreciatively: splendid figure, regal carriage, gorgeous clothes and hat. Odd to think of her as granddaughter of that dumpy little woman. She, like him, would from now be caught up in the great public events of the time. He saw the reddish-brown tip of a hatpin poking through the too-small evening bag: typical of her and her kind always to be prepared for an emergency!

“I’ve just had a call from the manager,” he said. “The emergency’s over. The police have gone.”

“Excellent,” she said. “I have a very full morning of engagements. Civil of him to let you know.”

“Naturally he did,” said Mr. Lloyd-George, swelling to his full adiposity. “I advised him how to go about things.”

“I do love a clever man.”

“And I am the Prime Minister of Great Britain.”

She paused before disappearing through the door.

“And I am Marie of Romania.”

The Sultans of Soul

by Doug Allyn

There could hardly be a better chronicler of the world of popular music than Doug Allyn, who has been touring with bands in northern Michigan for more than twenty-five years. This tale of a gumshoe hired to collect unpaid royalties takes us to the heart of the record industry and the early days of the Motown sound...

* * *

Papa Henry’s Hickory Hut serves the best barbeque in the city of Detroit, bar none. Ribs to die for. The Hut is just a storefront diner, booths along one wall, a scarred Formica counter and backless chrome stools. Ah, but behind the counter, shielded by a spattered Plexiglas screen, is an honest to Jesus barbeque pit. You can watch your order revolve on the rotisserie, kissed by flames and hickory smoke, while homebaked hoecakes warm on the grill. High cholesterol? Probably. But since the Hut’s on the rough side of Eight Mile, keeping your veins intact is a more pressing worry than having them clogged.

I’d ordered a late breakfast at Papa’s, and was sipping coffee, waiting, when a white Cadillac limo ghosted to the curb out front. The chauffeur, a uniformed black the size of a small building, popped an umbrella against the April drizzle, and opened the back door. An elderly black gentleman eased slowly out. The chauffeur watched, wooden, offering no help.

The old man looked exotic, like a Nigerian diplomat. An orange patterned kente-cloth cap, a Kuppenheimer’s continental-cut black suit, hand-tailored to a tee. He had café au lait skin, a spray of coppery freckles across the bridge of his nose, a metallic gray Malcolm X goatee. Dark, intense hawk’s eyes.

He’d have stood six feet plus upright, but he was pain-hunched into a question mark, using a silver-headed bamboo cane for support. I guessed him to be fiftyish. Fifty isn’t old for most people. It was for this guy.

He moved like he’d been wounded at Gettysburg. Step, lean, step, lean. The gait was familiar. Sickle cell anemia, very late in the game. I grew up around it down home. This old man had lasted longer than most. But it was coming for him now. And he was coming for me, sizing me up all the way. I was easy enough to spot! As usual, I was the only white face in the Hut.

It took him a month to limp the dozen paces back to my booth. He stopped in front of my table, leaning on the cane, wobbly as a foundered horse. “You’d be Axton, right? From the detective agency up the street?” he asked, his voice a low rasp. Black velvet.

“Yes, sir. Something I can do for you?”

“For openers, you can speak up. I don’t hear too well. My name’s Mack, Varnell Mack.”

“R. B. Axton,” I said, offering my hand. He ignored it. “Would you care to sit down, Mr. Mack?”

“No thanks, too damn hard to get up again, and I won’t be here long. I’m into a few things around Detroit, mostly real estate, own some rental units. Willis Tyrone, the guy that owns them pawns down in the ward? Willis tells me you’re good at collectin’ money folks ain’t altogether sure they owe.”

“I make collections sometimes,” I said cautiously, “but I don’t do evictions.”

“Neither do I,” Mack said, “that’s the problem.” A spasm took his breath for a moment. His knuckles locked on the cane and a faint sheen of moisture beaded on his forehead. “I believe I will sit down after all,” he said, swallowing. He drew a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, flicked the dust off the bench across from me, then casually replaced the handkerchief in his pocket with a flip of his wrist. A perfect fleur-de-lis. I was impressed. I can barely manage to knot a necktie.

“See, I had this old gentleman livin’ in one of my buildin’s,” Mack said, easing into the booth. “Used to be a helluva singer ’round Detroit back in the fifties, early sixties, even cut a few records. Horace DeWitt. Ever hear of him?”

“Can’t say I have, but I’m not from Detroit originally.”

“Knew that the minute you opened your mouth. Where you from, boy? Alabama?”

“No, sir, Mississippi. A little town called Noxapater.”

“They teach you to call blacks ‘sir’ down there, did they?”

“They taught me to be polite to my elders,” I said evenly. “And to watch my mouth around strangers. You were saying about Mr. DeWitt?”

“I used to write tunes, sing backup in Horace’s group. Called ourselves the Sultans of Soul.”

“No kidding? I remember the group. From when I was a kid, down home. I’ve still got one of your songs on an oldies tape. ‘Motor City... something?”

“ ‘Motor City Mama.’ I wrote that one. Our last single. Cracked the top twenty on the race charts in sixty-one. Never made no money off it, record company folded right after, but it got us a name so we could make a few bucks doin’ shows. Then things petered out, the group busted up. I went into real estate, did all right for myself. Helped out Horace some, last few years, with rent and such. He had a stroke a few months back, had to move to a rest home. One of them welfare places. I offered to help, but he wouldn’t take it. He’s flat busted, cain’t even afford a TV in his room.”

“Sorry to hear it,” I said.

“Maybe you shouldn’t be,” Mack said. “Might be somethin’ in it for you. Thing is, I still hear ‘Motor City Mama’ on the radio sometimes. So I figure somebody must owe the Sultans some money. I want you to collect it.”

“Collect it?” I echoed.

“That’s what you do, ain’t it?”

“I, ahm... Look, Mr. Mack, what I do is skip-traces mostly. People who light out owing other people money. I hunt ’em up, talk ’em into doin’ the right thing.”

“So?”

“So, for openers, who do you expect me to collect from?”

“That’s your problem. If I knew who owed Horace, I wouldn’t hafta hire you. I’d see to it myself.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Boy, I never joke about money.”

“All right then, straight up. Even if I could find somebody who’d admit to owing the Sultans some royalties or whatever, it probably wouldn’t amount to beans. And I don’t work cheap.”

“Two-fifty a day, Willis told me,” Mack said, snaking an envelope out of an inner pocket, tossing it on the table. “Here’s a week in advance. Fifteen hundred. You need more, my number’s on the envelope. But I expect to see some results.”

I left the envelope where it was. “Mr. Mack, I really don’t think I can help you. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Willis gave me your card,” Mack said, using the cane to lever himself to his feet. “R. B. Axton, private investigations. That makes you some kinda detective, right?”

“Yes, sir, but—”

“So maybe you oughta try earnin’ your fee. Investigate or whatever. Look, I know it’d be cheaper to just lay the damn money on Horace. He won’t take it. He was a dynamite singer once. And people are still listenin’ to his music. He shouldn’t oughta go out broke like this. It ain’t right.”

“No, sir,” I said, “I suppose it isn’t.”

“All right then,” he said grimly. “You find out who owes the Sultans some money. And you get it. How much don’t matter, but you get Horace somethin’, understand?”

I picked up the envelope, intending to give it back to him. But I didn’t. There was something in his eyes. Dark fire. Anger perhaps, and pain. It cost him a lot just to walk in here. More than money. I put the envelope in my pocket. “I’ll look into it,” I said. “I can’t promise anything.”

“Banks don’t cash promises anyway,” Mack said, turning, and limping slowly toward the door. Step, lean, step, lean. “Call me when you got somethin’.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. He didn’t look back.

Finding a place to start looking wasn’t all that tough. The cassette tray in my car. I did have the Sultans of Soul on tape. “Motor City Mama.” There was no information on the cassette itself. It was a bootleg compilation from Rock ’n Soul Recollections, on south Livernois.

R&S isn’t the usual secondhand record shop with records piled around like orphaned children. The shop’s a renovated theater, complete with bulletproof box office, which, considering its location, is probably prudent. The walls are crammed floor to ceiling with poster art, larger-than-life shots of Michigan music monsters, Smokey Robinson, Bob Seger, The Temps, Stevie Wonder. The bins are immaculate, every last 45 lovingly encased in cellophane, cross-referenced and catalogued like Egyptian antiquities.

All this regimentation is a reflection of the owner/manager, Cal, a wizened little guy with a watermelon paunch and a tarn permanently attached to his oversized pate. I don’t recall his last name, if I ever heard it, but he knows mine. Not just because I’m a good customer, but because he remembers everything about everything. He knows every record he has in stock, and probably every record he’s ever had in stock.

On the downside, he’s compulsive, wears the same outfit every day: green slacks, frayed white shirt, navy cardigan clinched with a safety pin. His hands look like lizard-skin gloves because he washes them forty times a day. Still, if I wanted to know about the Sultans, Cal was the person to ask.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.

“Hey, I should think you’d be flattered. I thought you knew everything about those old groups.”

“I do know about their records,” he said, irritated. “The Sultans cut three forty-fives and one album, all out of print. But as to who owns the rights to their music now? Hell, there were a million penny-ante record labels back then, and the royalty rights were swapped around like baseball cards. Most of the forty-fives were cut in fly-by-night studios owned by the mob—”

“Whoa up. Mob? You mean organized crime?”

“Absolutely. In the fifties and early sixties radio play was still segregated. Damn few stations would air black music, so the only market for it was jukeboxes. And most of the jukes and vending machines in Detroit were mob controlled.”

“Terrific.”

“The bottom line is, if you want to find somebody who might owe the Sultans a few bucks, you’re probably looking for some smalltime hood who once owned a few jukes and a two-bit recording studio and went out of the record business before you were born.”

“But I still hear ‘Motor City Mama’ on the radio sometimes.”

“Local deejays play it because of the title, but Detroit’s probably the only town in the country where it’s aired. Wanna try muscling a few nickels out of Wheelz or WRIF?”

“Fat chance. What label did the Sultans record for?”

“That at least I can tell you,” he said, flipping through a stack of albums. “None of their stuff has been reissued, even on a collection. The Sultans just weren’t big enough... Here we go, the Sultans of Soul, ‘Motor City Mama.’ ”

He passed me the album. The cover photo was a blurred action shot, four black guys in gold lame jackets doing splits behind the lead singer, a beefy stud with conked hair. Mack appeared to be the tall guy on the left, but the picture had faded. So had Mack. I flipped the album over. “Black Catz?” I read. “What can you tell me about it?”

“Not much,” Cal said. “It was a local label, defunct since...” He frowned, then shook his head slowly, his face gradually creasing into a ghost of a smile.

“I knew it,” I said. “You do know something, right?”

“Nothing that’ll help you, I’m afraid,” he said. “But I did come across a Black Catz reissue recently. Not the Sultans though. Millie Jump and the Jacks.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Maybe you don’t remember the Jacks, but you should remember Millicent. Soul singer who had a few hits in the sixties, then tried Hollywood and bombed? The Jacks was her original group, until she dumped ’em to marry the label owner and use his money to go solo.”

“Wait a minute, you mean Millicent’s husband, Sol Katz, was the original owner of Black Catz?”

“That’s right,” Cal said. “You know him?”

“I not only know him, I’ve worked for him.”

“Worked for Sol?” Cal said, squinting at me from beneath his tam. “Doing what? Kneecaps with a baseball bat?”

“Actually I didn’t exactly work for Sol. His daughter, Desirée, was an opening act for Was Not Was at the Auburn Hills Palace. I was her bodyguard.”

“I would have thought Sol had bodyguards to spare.”

“He wanted somebody who knew the local music scene. Most of his guys are from L.A.”

“And it didn’t bother you, working for a hood?”

“I — heard rumors about Sol, but in this business you hear smoke about everybody. Hell, half the guys in the biz pretend to be hoods just to spook the competition.”

“Sol Katz isn’t pretending, Ax, he’s the real thing. His old man was an enforcer for the Purple Gang back in the thirties. Sol took to the family business like The Godfather Part II.”

“I thought he was from L.A.?”

“He went out there awhile after the Purples ran him out of Detroit for marrying Millie. Having a black mistress in those days was one thing, but marriage? Not in his set. Besides, Millie figured she was ready for the bright lights. She was a fair singer, but never quite good enough to make it big, even with Sol’s money. How’s the daughter, whatsername, Desirée?”

“About the same, not bad, not gangbusters. I think Millie and Sol want her to make it more than she wants it herself. They’ve got her cutting an album of classic soul stuff out at the Studio Seven complex. What label was the reissue on?”

“Studio Seven, which means Sol may still own the rights to the Black Catz library. Including the Sultans. Lucky you. You going to try to collect?”

“That’s what I’m being paid for.”

“Hope you’re getting enough to cover hospitalization. By the way, who is paying you? I thought the Sultans were all playing harps these days.”

“They nearly are. Horace DeWitt, the lead singer, is in a rest home and the guy who hired me, Varnell Mack, looks like an AWOL from intensive care.”

“I probably have them mixed up with another group. There were so many in those days,” he said softly, glancing around the displays, filled with CDs, albums, tapes. And raw talent. And Soul. “So many. You know, it might not matter much to world peace, but it’d be nice if you could squeeze a few bucks out of Sol for the Sultans. Just for the damn principle of the thing.”

“Principles?” I said. “In this business?”

Actually, principle was all I had going for me. Mack hadn’t given me as much as a faded IOU to work with. In the music biz, sometimes deals with very serious money involved are done with a handshake or a phone call. I occasionally get hired to collect on oral contracts, but usually folks know in their heart of hearts that they owe the money. This was different.

Technically, Sol Katz probably didn’t owe the Sultans dime one. Hell, after all these years he might not even remember who they were. Whatever deal they’d had, they’d lived with it for nearly thirty years, so if Sol told me to take a hike, I’d walk. Assuming my knees were still functional. Still, I figured I had a small chance. Mobster or no, a guy who’d risk his neck to marry the woman he loved must have a heart, right?

Right. So why did I keep remembering every story I’d ever heard about the Purple Gang? Two-to-a-box coffins, the shooters at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the gang that pushed Capone out of Detroit...

I shook it off. Ancient history, all of it. Then again, so were the Sultans of Soul.

The Studio 7 building is a spanking new concrete castle just off Gratiot Avenue, in the equally new city of Eastpointe, nee East Detroit. The locals rechristened the town, trying to shed its Murder City East image.

Funny, it had never occurred to me what a fortress Sol’s studio complex was. I’d called ahead to let Desi know I was coming, but I still had to identify myself to a uniformed guard at the parking lot gate when I drove in, and to a second guard at the front door, then get clearance from a body-by-steroids male receptionist to use the elevator. There was nothing unusual about the stiff security arrangements. In a town where gunslingers will hold you up in broad daylight to steal your car, paranoia is an entirely rational state of mind.

Still, knowing Sol was a born-to-the-purple mobster made all the guards and guns seem a lot more sinister. It was like finding out your lover and your best friend were once lovers. You can’t help revising all previous data.

The recording studios are on the fourth floor of the complex. The rooms are carpeted floor to ceiling in earth-tone textured saxony, and subdivided into a half-dozen Plexiglas booths which separate the musicians and singers on the rare occasions when two people actually tape at the same time. Nowadays most tracks are cut solo to avoid crosstalk and achieve maximal clarity. State-of-the-art digital recording, as sterile as a test-tube conception. And even less fun.

Roddy Rothstein, Sol’s head of security, was leaning against the wall outside the studio door. He looks like an aging surfer: bleached hair, china-blue eyes, a thin scar that droops his left eyelid. He was wearing jeans, snakeskin boots, and an L.A. Raiders jacket that didn’t quite conceal the Browning nine millimeter in his shoulder holster. He gave me a hard, thousand-yard stare. Nothing personal. Roddy looks at everybody like a lizard eyeing a fly.

“Hey, Ax, what’s doin’?”

“Small stuff. Is Mr. Katz in?”

“Everybody’s in but me,” Roddy grumbled. “The music biz. Life in the fast lane.”

“Beats honest work,” I said.

“How would you know? Go ahead, green light’s on.”

Even with Roddy’s okay and the warning light in the hall showing green, I still eased the door open cautiously. At five hundred bucks an hour, you never barge into a studio. But it was okay. They were in the middle of a soundcheck. Desi was wearing headsets in a sound-isolation booth. Recording company promos always shave a decade or so off performers’ ages, but in her Pistons T-shirt and bullet-riddled jeans, Desi really did look like a high-school dropout, dark, slender, drop-dead gorgeous. If she ever learns to sing as good as she looks... She gave me a grin and flipped me the fickle finger. I waved back.

Millie and Sol were chewing on the engineer about clarity. Interracial couples aren’t unusual in Detroit, but Sol and Millie were an especially handsome pair. Sol, slender, dapper, with steel-grey hair, grey eyes, fashionably blasé in a pearl-grey Armani jacket over a teal polo shirt. Millie was probably a few pounds heavier than in her Millicent days, but she wore it well. Voluptuous, in deceptively casual jogging togs that probably cost more than my car. Sol left the argument to give Millie the last word and strolled over. The Godfather II? Maybe. Maybe so.

“Axton,” he nodded, “how are you doin’? Glad you dropped by. Desi was going to call you. She’s going to do some charity shows for AIDS next month, Cleveland and Buffalo. I’d like you to handle security if you’re free.”

“I’ll be free,” I said. “If you still want me. This, ahm, this isn’t a social call, Mr. Katz. It’s business.”

“What kind of business?” Millie said, waving the engineer back to his booth. I felt sorry for him. Millie can be a hard lady to be on the wrong side of. A tough woman in a tough trade.

“It’s a bit complicated, but basically, somebody hired me to, uhm... to collect an old debt.”

“What kind of debt?” Sol said evenly. “Who am I supposed to owe?”

“I’m not sure you owe anybody, Mr. Katz. Look, let me lay this thing on you straight up. Do you recall a group that recorded for you back in the early sixties called the Sultans of Soul?”

“The Sultans?” Millie echoed. “Sure. We did a few shows together at the Warfield and the Broadway Capitol.”

“Do you remember Varnell Mack?” I asked.

She shot a sharp glance at Sol, then back at me. “I remember him. Tall, with a goatee?”

“He’s not so tall now,” I said. “To make a long story short, Mr. Mack says Horace DeWitt, the Sultans’ lead singer, is down and out. In a rest home.”

“I heard,” Sol said coolly. “So?”

“So Mr. Mack is hoping you can see your way clear to... help Mr. DeWitt out. For auld lang syne.”

“Just Horace?” Sol frowned. “Or would Varnell be wanting a taste, too?”

“No, sir, Mr. Mack seems to be doing quite well. New Caddy and a chauffeur, in fact.”

“Good for him,” Sol said evenly. “Did he say anything about my trying to contact him?”

“He didn’t mention it. Why?”

“Nothing heavy,” Millie put in, a shade too casually. “We’ve been thinking of calling Desi’s new album Motor City Mama, so we need Varnell’s permission to use the song. We had Roddy ask around, but nobody seemed to know what happened to him.”

“He said he quit the business years ago, went into real estate,” I said.

Sol shrugged. “Well, if all Mack wants is a few bucks for Horace, maybe we can work something out. Tell you what, Ax, bring Varnell by the club tonight. Tenish? We’ll have a few drinks, talk it over.”

“Fine by me. I’ll have to check with Mr. Mack, of course.”

“Do that, and get back to me. Meantime, if you don’t mind, we’re gettin’ ready to roll tape.”

“No problem. I’ll be in touch. And thanks.”

I stopped at the first 7-Eleven I came to and used the drive-by phone in the lot to call Varnell Mack. He answered on a car phone; I could hear the traffic noise in the background. I tried to tell him what I had, but he cut me off.

“Boy, I can’t hear worth a damn over this thing. You got news for me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then meet me at that rib joint down from your office. Twenty minutes?”

“I’ll be there.”

Mack’s Cadillac limo was parked illegally in front of Papa Henry’s, motor running. His chauffeur was behind the wheel, his huge hands tapping out rhythm to the thump of the Caddy’s sound system. Mack was sitting in a front window booth facing the street. Not a spot I would have chosen, but then I don’t need a cane to get around either. At least, not yet. I slid into the booth. Mack was warming his hands around a cup of tea. I gave him a quick rundown on what I’d turned up.

“Ol’ Sol’s still in the business and livin’ fat city?” he said, showing a thin smile. “And still with Millie? I’ll be damned. Who woulda figured it after all this time?”

“It hasn’t really been so long,” I said.

“Been a lifetime for some people,” Mack said, glancing out the flyspecked window at the street. A posse car cruised slowly past, a blacked-out Monte Carlo low rider. Mack didn’t notice it. He was looking beyond to... somewhere else.

“Millie remembered you,” I said.

“A lotta woman, Millie. Smart, too. Smart enough to marry money, and stick to it.”

“Maybe it wasn’t like that,” I said.

“No?” the old man said, annoyed. “Know a lot about it, do you, boy? You married?”

“I was. Once.”

“Once oughta be enough for people, one way or another. You know, Willis told me you were sharp, Axton, but I’ll tell you the God’s truth, when I laid that money on you, I thought I was kissin’ it goodbye, I truly did. You did okay.”

“I haven’t actually done anything yet,” I said.

“How do you figure?”

“You hired me to collect some money for the Sultans. Sol said he was willing to work something out about the rights to ‘Motor City Mama.’ He didn’t actually say he’d pay or how much.”

“Don’t worry ’bout it.” Mack smiled grimly. “The important thing is, he’s willin’ to talk. This ain’t really about money, you know? It’s about doin’ the right thing. So whatever Sol’s willin’ to pay, it’ll be enough.” He used his cane to lever himself painfully out of the booth. “I’ll pick you up here at nine-thirty.”

“Right,” I said absently. The posse car was coming by again, probably checking out Mack’s Cadillac. I watched it pass, then realized what was bothering me wasn’t the car, it was something above it, something glinting from the roof of the building across the street. For a split second I froze, half-expecting gunfire. But the flash was too bright to be metal. And it wasn’t moving. Mack was eyeing me oddly.

“Anythin’ wrong?”

“Nope,” I said, “not a thing. I’ll see you tonight.” I waited in the booth while he limped out to the Caddy and climbed in. As the car drifted away from the curb, a man stood up on the roof of the building opposite. With a minicam. He photographed Mack’s car as it made a left onto Eight Mile.

I slipped out the back door of Papa Henry’s into the alley, trotted down to the end of the block, and walked quickly to the corner, keeping close to the building. The man on the roof was gone.

Damn! I sprinted across the street, dodging traffic, and dashed down the alley. A blue Honda Civic was parked in a turnout, halfway down. It had to be his. Nobody parks in an alley in this part of town.

I heard a clank of metal from above and flattened against the wall. Someone was coming down the fire escape, moving quickly. A slender black man in U of D sweats and granny glasses, toting a black canvas shoulder bag. I waited until he was halfway down the last set of firestairs, then stepped out, blocking the path to his car.

“Nice day for it,” I said.

He froze. “For what?”

“Taking pictures. That’s what you were doing, right? Of me and the man I was with?”

He hesitated a split second, then shrugged. “If you walk away from me right now, maybe you can stay out of this thing.”

“What thing?”

“An official Metro narcotics investigation.”

“Narcotics investigation? Of who? Me? Papa Henry? You’ll have to do better than that.”

“I’m warning you, you’re interfering in—”

“Save the smoke,” I interrupted. “If you’re a cop, show me some tin, and I’m gone.”

“Fair enough,” he said coolly. He unzipped the canvas bag, took out a packet, and flipped it toward me. I half-turned to catch it, and he vaulted the rail and hit the ground running. He only had me by two steps and the bag on his shoulder must have slowed him, but he was still too fast for me.

“Heeelllp!” he shouted as we pounded down the alley. “The maaan! The maaan!”

It worked. I broke off the chase a few feet from the alley mouth. There was no way a white guy could chase a black man down Eight Mile without attracting an unfriendly crowd, and we both knew it. He cut a hard right when he hit the street and disappeared. I turned and trotted back to his car.

The packet he’d tossed at me was useless, a brochure for camera film from a shop on Woodward. I considered breaking into the car, but decided against it. For openers, I wasn’t certain it was his car. But I was fairly sure that he’d been filming Mack and me. We were the only ones sitting in the windows; he’d photographed the Caddy as it pulled away, and stopped shooting when it was gone.

A narcotics investigation? Possible. God knows, there are enough of ’em in this town. But if he was a cop, why not just show me some ID? Or a .38? No narc would work an alley off Eight Mile unarmed. And if he wasn’t a cop, then what was he?

I was getting an uneasy sense of blundering through a roomful of spiderwebs. The only reason I could think of for someone to film me talking to Mack was that one of us was being set up for something. I’ve ticked off a few folks over the years, but none I could think of who’d bother with a cameraman. Not in a town where you can buy a hit for fifty bucks. Or less.

That left Mack. Was he mixed up in the drug scene? Maybe, though the drug trade’d be a rough game for somebody who can barely walk. Besides, he hadn’t asked me to do anything illegal. He hired me to collect money for the Sultans from persons unknown.

Or had he? All I really knew about Mack was what he told me. Millie remembered him, and Sol too. From the old days. This whole thing kept coming back to that. The old days. And the Sultans of Soul.

And Horace DeWitt. And since in a way I was actually working for DeWitt, maybe it was time I met the Sultans’ leader. Besides, I’d been hearing “Motor City Mama” since I was a tad. It would be interesting to finally meet the face behind the voice.

I’ve acquired a modest reputation in music circles for tracing skips and collecting debts. The sign on my office door says private investigations, but the truth is I don’t have to do much Sherlocking. The people in this business aren’t very good at hiding. And since he wasn’t hiding, Horace DeWitt was easier to find than most.

Mack mentioned DeWitt had only been in the home for a few months, so he was still listed in the phone book at his old address on Montcalm, and a quick call to the post office gave me his forwarding address. Riverine Heights, in Troy.

The funk from some welfare-case warehouses will drop you to your knees a half a block away, but Riverine Heights appeared to be better than most, a modern, ten-story cinderblock tower on Wattles Road. It even had a view of River Rouge.

At the front desk, a cheery, plump blonde in nurse’s whites had me sign the visitor’s log, and told me I’d probably find Mr. DeWitt in the fourth-floor residents’ lounge. Fourth floor. A relief. The higher you go in these places, the less mobile the patients are. The top floors are reserved for the bedridden, only a last gasp from heaven. A fourth-floor resident should be ambulatory, more or less.

It was less. The residents’ lounge was a small reading room with French doors that opened out onto a balcony. Institutional green plastic chairs lined the walls, a few well-thumbed magazines lay forgotten on the bookshelves. An elderly woman in street clothes was sitting on the sofa with a patient in a robe. The woman was knitting a scarf. Her date was asleep, his mouth open, his head resting on her shoulder.

Horace DeWitt was awake at least, sitting in a wheelchair in the sunlight by the French doors. A folding card table was pulled up to his knees. He was playing solitaire.

I’d seen his picture only hours before, but I barely recognized him. The singer on the Sultans’ album had been a macho stud. The old man in the chair looked like a picture from Dorian Gray’s attic. The conked hair had thinned and his slacks and sports shirt hung on his shrunken frame like death-camp pajamas. The stroke had melted the right side of his face like wax in a fire, one eyelid drooped nearly closed and the corner of his mouth was turned down in a permanent scowl.

His left arm lay in his lap like deadwood, palm up, fingers curled into a claw. Still, he seemed to be dealing the cards accurately, even one-handed. And he was cheating.

“Mr. DeWitt?” I said. “My name’s Axton. I’ve been a big fan of yours for years. Got a minute to talk?”

“I guess I can fit you into my dance card,” he said, peering up at me with his good eye. “But if you want me to headline one o’ them soul revues, I’ll have to pass.”

His words were slurred by the twisted corner of his mouth. But his voice carried me back to steamy Mississippi nights, blowing down backroads in my daddy’s pickup, WLAC Nashville blaring clear and righteous on the radio. The Sultans of Soul. “I’m comin’ home, Motown Mama, I just can’t live without ya...” I think I could’ve picked Horace DeWitt’s voice out of a Silverdome crowd howling after a Lions’ touchdown.

“Fact is, in a way I’m already working for you, Mr. DeWitt,” I said, squatting beside his chair. “Varnell Mack hired me to try to collect some back royalties for the Sultans.”

“Did he now?” DeWitt said, cocking his head, looking me over. “What’s he got against you?”

“Nothing I know of, why?”

“ ’Cause the last guy I heard of tried to squeeze a nickel outa Sol Katz wound up tryna backstroke ’cross Lake St. Clair draggin’ a hunert pounds o’ loggin’ chain.”

“Maybe I’ll have better luck. I can’t promise anything, but I think there’s a fair chance we’ll shake a few bucks loose.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, turning to his game. “The check’s in the mail, right? So what you want from me?”

“Not much. I was hoping you could tell me a little about Mr. Mack.”

“Varnell? Fair bass singer, better songwriter. Wrote ‘Motor City Mama,’ only song Sol didn’t screw us out of, and he only missed that one ’cause he blew town in a hurry. That why Sol sent you around? Hell, I signed over my rights to that jam years ago.”

“I’m not working for Sol Katz, Mr. DeWitt, I’m working for Varnell Mack.”

“So you said.” He nodded. “But if you workin’ for him, why ask me about him?”

“Because I think he may be in some kind of trouble. Would you know a reason why anyone would be videotaping his movements? Police maybe?”

“Videotape?” the old man echoed, glancing up at me again, exasperated. “Sweet Jesus, what is this crap? The damn stroke messed up my arm some, but my brains ain’t Alpo yet. At least the last dude Sol sent around askin’ about Vamell came at me straight on. I don’t know what kind of a scam you’re tryna pull, but take your show on the road.”

“I’m not pulling a scam, Mr. DeWitt.”

“Hell you ain’t,” DeWitt snapped. “Look, I let you run your mouth to pass the time, but I’m tired of listenin’ to jive ’bout friends of mine. Varnell Mack never hired you for a damn thing, sonny, so tell your story walkin’ or I’m liable to get out’ this chair and throw your jive ass outa here.”

“Mr. DeWitt, why don’t you think Varnell Mack hired me?”

“I don’t think he didn’t, boy, I know. Hell, he ain’t even been Varnell for more’n twenty years. He went Muslim after the sixty-seven riots, changed his name to Raheem somethin’ or other. Wouldn’t hardly speak to a white man after that, say nothin’ of hirin’ one.”

“Maybe he’s mellowed.”

“Musta mellowed one helluva lot. Musta mellowed hisself right outa the ground.”

“What are you saying?”

“The man’s dead, boy. Died back in eighty-three. Lung cancer. Wasn’t but a dozen people at his funeral and most of them was Farrakhan Muslims. So you trot back an’ tell Sol if he wants to use that jam, go ahead on. I won’t give him no trouble, and Varnell sure as hell won’t neither. You got what you came for, now get on away from me.” He turned back to his game, shutting me out as effectively as if he’d slammed a door.

I rose slowly, trying to think of something to say. It wouldn’t matter. He wasn’t going to buy anything I was selling now. And maybe he was wrong, had Varnell and this Raheem whatever mixed up somehow. Maybe.

I stopped at the front desk on my way out and asked the Dresden milkmaid on duty if DeWitt had regular visitors.

“I wouldn’t know offhand,” she said, frowning. “We have so many patients. Why do you ask?”

“He seems to be a little confused. About who’s alive, and who isn’t.”

“That happens quite a lot.” She smiled, scanning the visitor’s log. “Let’s see, a Mr. Rothstein visited a few weeks ago. And a Mr. Jaquette. A Mr. and Mrs. Robinson. Does that help?”

“No one named Mack?”

“Apparently not, not recently anyway. I wouldn’t be too concerned about it though,” she added. “Residents often get confused about friends who’ve passed on. They even talk to them sometimes. It can give you shivers.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know the feeling.”

I found my steps quickening as I made my way out of the rest home, and when I hit the sidewalk I was sprinting for my car. I scrambled in and peeled out of the lot, pedal down, headed back to the heart of Motown.

And Rock ’n Soul Recollections. I barely made it. It was after five and the blinds were drawn, but I could still see movement inside. I hammered on the door. “Open up, Cal! It’s an emergency.”

“An emergency?” he said quizzically, letting me in. “At a record store?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, stalking to the golden soul bin, riffling through the S’s. The Sultans. Horace. DeWitt grinned up at me from the jacket, young and strong. A rock. I scanned the faces of his backup singers. Their images were barely more than grey smears, blurred by the dance step they were doing. I just couldn’t be sure.

“Have you got any other pictures of the Sultans?” I asked. “Posters? Anything?”

“The Sultans?” he echoed, eyeing me blankly, while he rapid-scanned the computer directory of his memory. “I have two playbills with the Sultans featured, but no pictures...” He crossed to a file of publicity memorabilia, and expertly riffled through it. “Aha. A program for a Warfield Theater revue. Nineteen sixty-two. Sam Cooke, The Olympics, Millie Jump and the Jacks, and... the Sultans of Soul. Be careful now, it’s a by God cherry original.”

I checked the table of contents, then leafed through the program gingerly. And found the Sultans of Soul. A standard publicity shot of Horace DeWitt ringed by four dudes in gleaming lame jackets. Except for Horace, I didn’t recognize any of them. I checked the fine print beneath the photo. Varnell Mack was last on the left. He was tall, and had a Malcolm X goatee. But he definitely was not the man who hired me.

Damn.

“What’s with you?” Cal said. “You look like you lost your best friend.”

“Worse. I think I may be losing my touch. I’m being conned by a guy who can barely walk across a room.”

“Conned out of what?”

“That’s the hell of it. I don’t know. Cal, why would anybody pretend to be a has-been soul singer? And a dead one at that?”

“Somebody’s pretending to be one of the Sultans? But why? Even in their heyday they were strictly small change.”

“It can’t be for money,” I said. “He’s already paid me more than he’s likely to get from any royalties. So what does he want?”

“You got any idea who this guy is?”

“All I know is that it has to be somebody from the old days who knew the Sultans. I’m guessing he found out Sol was looking for Varnell from Horace DeWitt, so his name could be Robinson, or maybe Jaquette.”

“Jaquette?” Cal said, blinking. “First name?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because I know a few Jaquettes, but only one who would’ve known the Sultans,” Cal said, taking the program from me and flipping through it. “Could this be your guy? The one in the middle?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, “this is him. Or it was thirty years ago. But this pic isn’t of the Sultans.”

“Nope, it’s the Jacks, Millie Jump’s old group. Dexter Jaquette was their lead singer. And Millie’s husband. She dumped him after he got busted.”

“Busted for what?”

“A nickel-dime dope thing, couple of marijuana cigarettes. It’d be nothing now, but it was a hard fall back then. I think he did five years.”

“All that was a lifetime ago. What could he possibly want now?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Maybe I will,” I said slowly, still staring at the smiling photo of Dexter Jaquette. “Can I take this with me?”

“Absolutely,” Cal said. “That’ll be twenty-four bucks plus tax, an extra ten for opening late, call it thirty-five even.”

I raised an eyebrow, but paid without carping. He’d been a huge help and we both knew it.

I left the program open on the seat as I drove back to my apartment, and my eye kept straying to it. It was a jolting contrast, the faded photo of Dexter Jaquette the singer, and the broken man who’d hired me. My God, he was so young then. Younger than I am now. But there was more to it than that. Something about that picture that I was missing.

Pictures. The guy with the videocam. What was that all about? The only thing I was sure of was that Jaquette had gone to a lot of trouble to set this up. If I confronted him, he’d probably just back off and try again later. Assuming he lived long enough.

Should I warn Sol? A double conundrum. Sol wasn’t my client, Dexter was. And if I warned Sol, he’d sic Roddy Rothstein on Jaquette. The fact that he was a cripple wouldn’t bother Roddy. He’d rough him up, run him off, or worse, and I’d still never know what I’d bought into.

Unless I played it out. Seemed to me this show had been in rehearsal for thirty years. It would be a shame to close it before the last act.

The Cadillac rolled up in front of Papa Henry’s a little after nine. I climbed out of my Buick and trotted over just as Mack’s chauffeur opened the back door.

“There’s been a change in plans,” I said. “We’ll take my car. Give your man the night off.”

Mack/Jaquette eyed me a moment, then shrugged. “My car, your car, I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“Good. And Mr. Mack, I mean give him the night off. I don’t want to see him in my rearview mirror, or the meet’s canceled. Understood?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling faintly. “I think I understand.” He spoke briefly to the chauffeur, who started to argue, then gave it up. He looked me over slowly, memorizing my features, then helped Jaquette out of the car, and drove off.

Jaquette made his way slowly to my car. He’d changed into a tux, with a gleaming ebony cane to match. The suit was an immaculate fit, and broken and bent as he was, he looked elegant. Dressed to kill.

After he’d eased into my car, I leaned in and snapped his seat belt, fussing over his suit to make sure the belt didn’t muss it. And gave him a none-too-subtle frisk at the same time. I expected him to object, but he didn’t. He seemed amused, energized. Wired up and ready.

Costa Del Sol is one of the hottest discotheques in Detroit. Tucked away on the fifteenth floor of the Renaissance Center, it’s trendy, expensive, and very exclusive, with memberships available only to the very chic, and the very rich. I’d been there a few times as Desirée ’s bodyguard, but the bouncers working the front door still wouldn’t admit us until Roddy Rothstein bopped out to okay it.

The Costa is on two levels, a huge, lighted dance floor below, a Plexiglas-shielded balcony above, with a deejay suspended in a pod between them, cranking out power jams loud enough to give the Statue of Liberty an earache. A state-of-the-art laser system plays on the dance floor, psychedelic starbursts competing with the camera flashes of the paparazzi shooting the celebrities at play from the press section of the balcony.

We followed Roddy up the escalator to the second floor, the dining, observing, deal-making area. Shielded from the blare of the sound-system, the music from below is reduced to a pulse up here, a thump you feel through your soles like a heartbeat.

Roddy threaded his way slowly through the tables, adjusting his pace to Jaquette’s limp, leading us to the head table, where Sol and Millie were chatting up the entertainment editor of the Detroit Free Press. Sol had changed jackets, black, with a black shirt, to highlight a heavy gold Jerusalem cross. Millie was dazzling in a white sequined jumpsuit, a spray of diamonds in her hair. Desi was her usual fashionably frumpy self, street-person chic. In the bustle, nobody noticed us, until Jaquette spoke.

“Hello, Sol,” he said quietly. “How’s the leech business?”

Sol glanced up, annoyed, and the color bled from his face. “My God. Dexter.” He glanced quickly around, but Roddy had already moved off into the crowd. “What do you want?”

“To settle up. To close out my account.”

“There’s nothing to close out,” Millie said, glaring furiously at me. “It was all settled a long time ago.”

“Maybe not,” Jaquette said, glancing at Desi. “What do you think, girl? You know who I am?”

“You’re nobody,” Sol snapped. “History.”

“Maybe it’s history to you,” Jaquette said. “It’s not for me. You got any idea what it’s like to see a girl’s face on a billboard, have it nag at you? Knowin’ there’s somethin’ familiar about her? Bugged me so much I went to a shop to buy her album, and as soon as I saw her picture up close I knew. I mean I knew. It was like bein’ struck by lightning. She looks like you, Millie, even sounds like you. But she looks like me, too. And like my mama. The record jacket said she was only twenty-five, but I knew it was a damn lie. She’s mine. You were pregnant when you quit me, hid it from me so you could cop yourself a honky meal ticket.”

“That’s enough,” Sol snapped. “I don’t know what you think you got comin’, Dex, but if it’s trouble, you’re at the right place. Roddy!” Rothstein hurried toward us, bulling his way through the crowd, signaling to another security type standing near the balcony rail. Beyond him, I glimpsed a familiar silhouette, the man I’d seen on the rooftop that afternoon. He was in the press gallery now, with a camera, or a weapon, I couldn’t be sure.

“Too late, Sol,” Jaquette said, reaching under his coat. “You took everything, the music, my woman, even my child. It’s time to pay up.”

“Roddy!” Sol screamed, backing away, stumbling over his chair. Rothstein broke through the crowd and jerked his piece from under his coat, aiming at Dexter’s belly, two-hand hold.

“No!” I yelled, stepping between them. “Don’t. It’s what he wants!”

“Kill him!” Katz shouted. “Do it! Axton, get out of the way!”

“For godsake Sol, he’s unarmed! He didn’t come here to kill you, he came here to die! To take you with him! He’s got a guy in the balcony filming the whole thing!” Nobody was listening. Rothstein was circling to get a clear shot, and he was going to do it, I could read it in his eyes. Dammit!

I shoved Jaquette down out of the line of fire and threw myself at Roddy, tackling him chest high, the two of us crashing over a table. He hacked at me with his pistol, slamming me hard over the ear. I clutched desperately at his arm, but I was too dazed to hold it. He wrenched free, aiming his automatic past me at Dexter.

“Stop it!” Desi screamed, freezing us all for a split second, long enough for me to grab Rothstein’s wrist and clamp onto it with my teeth. He roared, and dropped his weapon, hammering my face with his free hand. Sol scrambled after Roddy’s piece, grabbed it, and swung it to cover Dexter.

“The balcony, Sol,” I managed. “Look at the press box.”

He risked a quick glance, spotted the guy with the camera. Then slowly got to his feet. He stood there, in a killing rage, his weapon centered on Jaquette’s chest, and if I’ve ever seen one man ready to kill another, it was Sol at that moment. The moment passed.

“Get up and get him out of here, Axton,” he said, lowering the pistol slightly. “But by God, if I ever see either of you again, I’ll be the last thing you ever see.”

I shook my head trying to clear it. Rothstein was still clutching his bloodied wrist. His eyes met mine for a moment, and I knew that it wasn’t finished between us. It was personal now. I’d be seeing him again. Terrific.

I lurched to my feet, and hauled Jaquette to his. He was spent, ashen, barely able to stand. I got an arm around him, picked up his cane, and helped him walk out, one slow step at a time. He hesitated at the escalator and I let him. He’d paid the price of admission.

He turned to look back a moment; God only knows what he was thinking. Sol and Millie were trying to calm Desi, all of them shaken to the core. Jaquette swallowed, and I thought he was going to say something, but he didn’t. Maybe he couldn’t. I walked him out to the car.

We drove in silence for twenty minutes, the only sound the rumble of the Buick’s big V-8 and the rasp of Jaquette’s breathing. He rolled down the window, letting the rain sprinkle his face and trickle down his goatee and his collar. It seemed to help.

“I thought it’d be easier,” he said softly, more to himself than to me.

“What would be?”

“Dying. I thought it through, thought I was ready. But at the last second there, I thought, maybe it’s not worth it. He’s not worth it. Not even after... everything. That, ahm, that was a bold thing you did back there. I’m sorry I dragged you into my trouble.”

“Why did you?” I asked.

“I needed somebody to walk me through Sol’s security. Went to the concert at the Palace to... to see the girl. Couldn’t even get close. Spotted you. Asked around, found out who you were, what you do. Took me a month to figure this thing out, set it up. The guy with the camera’s a film student from U of Detroit. Thinks he’s makin’ a documentary about an old-time singer tryin’ to collect some back royalties from a rip-off record company. Would’ve worked too. I figured everything but you.”

“How so?”

“Willis told me you were honest. He never said you were crazy. When it come down to it, I thought you’d stand aside, let it happen. And the whole thing’d be on film. No way Sol could duck the rap for takin’ me out.”

“And that’d be worth dying for?”

“Hell, I’m dyin’ anyway, boy, slow and hard. I was lucky to see Christmas. I won’t see another. I figured if I could just take Sol down with me... Maybe you shoulda let it happen. Hate’s all I had left,” he said, sagging back in his seat, closing his eyes. “Ain’t even got that now. I’m tired. To my bones. I wish I could just... be gone.”

“You can’t though. It’s not over.”

“No? Why not?”

“You hired me to collect some money, Mr. Jaquette. I haven’t done it yet. How would you like to meet your daughter? One on one? I think I can arrange it.”

His eyes blinked open. “Meet her? Why? To say goodbye?”

“Or hello. You might have more to talk about than you think. Business, for instance.”

“What business I got with her?”

“None. But the Sultans have business. With Sol.”

“Man, that was all smoke. A way to get to him is all. He screwed ’em for true, but it was all legal.”

“That doesn’t make it right. And Desi might not think so either. She’s got a good heart, and a hard nose. I think if you asked her right, you bein’ a dyin’ man and all, she’d talk Sol into doin’ the right thing by the Sultans.”

“It’s too late for that. The Sultans are gone, all but Horace. And he ain’t got long.”

“Then do it for the others. The Sultans weren’t the only group who got ripped off. Maybe you could establish a legal precedent other old-timers can use to get a fairer shake. It might not amount to much. But it’s better than nothing.”

“Maybe so, I don’t know. I’m too tired to think now. Drop me off at the corner. I wanna walk awhile.”

“It’s raining.”

“I know,” he said. “Stop the car.”

I watched him limp away, step, lean, step, lean. An old man in a tuxedo, in the rain. I wasn’t worried about him. His Cadillac had been tailing us since we left the Costa Del Sol.

I think he’s wrong about wanting to give up. A man who worked as hard as Jaquette to settle a score would find enough juice to talk to his daughter.

And he’s wrong about the Sultans, too. They aren’t gone. Not really. Nor are the hundreds of others who sang their souls out in warehouses and storefronts for pocket change. And altered the musical culture of the world. Shysters like Sol were so intent on cheating them out of every last nickel’s worth of rights and royalties that they let one minor asset slip past.

Immortality.

When Sol and his ilk are gone, who will remember? But the Sultans? And Sam Cooke? Otis Redding? As long as anyone’s left to listen, they’ll sing. Forever young.

I slid the worn cassette into the Buick’s player, felt the pulse of the kick drum in the pit of my stomach, then the thump of the bass. And Horace DeWitt sang to me. Not the stroke-shattered hulk in Riverine Heights, but the big-shouldered, brown-eyed, handsome man with conked hair, grinning up from the Warfield Theater program. And he was young again.

And so was I.

“I’m comin’ home, Motown Mama, I just can’t live without ya...”

The Man Who Was the God of Love

by Ruth Rendell

We are especially glad to be able to include in this 52nd anniversary issue a story by one of the most distinguished of contemporary crime writers. With her eerily acute depiction of character, Ruth Rendell often transcends the crime genre, producing mainstream novels and stories, but here she gives us a mystery almost in the classic vein...

* * *

“Have you got the Times there?” Henry would say, usually at about eight, when she had cleared the dinner table and put the things in the dishwasher.

The Times was on the coffee table with the two other dailies they took, but it was part of the ritual to ask her. Fiona liked to be asked. She liked to watch Henry do the crossword puzzle, the real one of course, not the quick crossword, and watch him frown a little, his handsome brow clear as the answer to a clue came to him. She could not have done a crossword puzzle to save her life (as she was fond of saying), she could not even have done the simple ones in the tabloids.

While she watched him, before he carried the newspaper off into his study as he often did, Fiona told herself how lucky she was to be married to Henry. Her luck had been almost miraculous. There she was, a temp who had come into his office to work for him while his secretary had a baby, an ordinary, not particularly good-looking girl, who had no credentials but a tidy mind and a proficient way with a word processor. She had nothing but her admiration for him, which she had felt from the first and was quite unable to hide.

He was not appreciated in that company as he should have been. It had often seemed to her that only she saw him for what he was. After she had been there a week she told him he had a first-class mind.

Henry had said modestly, “As a matter of fact, I have got rather a high IQ, but it doesn’t exactly get stretched round here.”

“I suppose they haven’t the brains to recognise it,” she said. “It must be marvellous to be really intelligent. Did you win scholarships and get a double first and all that?”

He only smiled. Instead of answering he asked her to have dinner with him. One afternoon, half an hour before they were due to pack up and go, she came upon him doing the Times crossword.

“In the firm’s time, I’m afraid, Fiona,” he said with one of his wonderful, half-rueful smiles.

He hadn’t finished the puzzle but at least half of it was already filled in and when she asked him he said he had started it ten minutes before. She was lost in admiration. Henry said he would finish the puzzle later and in the meantime would she have a drink with him on the way home?

That was three years ago. The firm, which deserved bankruptcy it was so mismanaged, got into difficulties and Henry was among those made redundant. Of course he soon got another job, though the salary was pitiful for someone of his intellectual grasp. He was earning very little more than she was, as she told him indignantly. Soon afterwards he asked her to marry him. Fiona was overcome. She told him humbly that she would have gladly lived with him without marriage, there was no one else she had ever known to compare with him in intellectual terms, it would have been enough to be allowed to share his life. But he said no, marriage or nothing, it would be unfair on her not to marry her.

She kept on with her temping job, making sure she stopped in time to be home before Henry and get his dinner. It was ridiculous to waste money on a cleaner, so she cleaned the house on Sundays. Henry played golf on Saturday mornings and he liked her to go with him, though she was hopeless when she tried to learn. He said it was an inspiration to have her there and praise his swing. On Saturday afternoons they went out in the car and Henry had begun teaching her to drive.

They had quite a big garden — they had bought the house on an enormous mortgage — and she did her best to keep it trim because Henry obviously didn’t have the time. He was engaged on a big project for his new company, which he worked on in his study for most of the evenings. Fiona did the shopping in her lunchtime, she did all the cooking and all the washing and ironing. It was her privilege to care for someone as brilliant as Henry. Besides, his job was so much more demanding than hers, it took more out of him, and by bedtime he was sometimes white with exhaustion.

But Henry was first up in the mornings. He was an early riser, getting up at six-thirty, and he always brought her a cup of tea and the morning papers in bed. Fiona had nothing to do before she went off to take first a bus and then the tube but put the breakfast things in the dishwasher and stack yesterday’s newspapers in the cupboard outside the front door for recycling.

The Times would usually be on top, folded with the lower left-hand quarter of the back page uppermost. Fiona soon came to understand it was no accident that the section of the paper where the crossword was, the completed crossword, should be exposed in this way. It was deliberate, it was evidence of Henry’s pride in his achievement, and she was deeply moved that he should want her to see it. She was touched by his need for her admiration. A sign of weakness on his part it might be, but she loved him all the more for that.

A smile, half-admiring, half-tender, came to her lips as she looked at the neatly printed answers to all those incomprehensible clues. She could have counted on the fingers of one hand the number of times he had failed to finish the crossword. The evening before his father died, for instance. Then it was anxiety that must have been the cause. They had sent for him at four in the morning and when she looked at the paper before putting it outside with the others, she saw that poor Henry had only been able to fill in the answers to four clues. Another time he had flu and had been unable to get out of bed in the morning. It must have been coming on the night before to judge by his attempt at the crossword, abandoned after two answers feebly pencilled in.

His father left him a house that was worth a lot of money. Henry had always said that when he got a promotion, she would be able to give up work and have a baby. Promotion seemed less and less likely in time of recession and the fact that the new company appreciated Henry no more than had his previous employers. The proceeds of the sale of Henry’s father’s house would compensate for that and Fiona was imagining paying off the mortgage and perhaps handing in her notice when Henry said he was going to spend it on having a swimming pool built. All his life he had wanted a swimming pool of his own, it had been a childhood dream and a teenage ideal and now he was going to realise it.

Fiona came nearer than she ever had to seeing a flaw in her husband’s perfection.

“You only want a baby because you think he might be a genius,” he teased her.

“She might be,” said Fiona, greatly daring.

“He, she, it’s just a manner of speaking. Suppose he had my beauty and your brains. That would be a fine turn-up for the books.”

Fiona was not hurt because she had never had any illusions about being brighter than she was. In any case, he was implying, wasn’t he, that she was good-looking? She managed to laugh. She understood that Henry could not always help being rather difficult. It was the penalty someone like him paid for his gifts of brilliance. In some ways intellectual prowess was a burden to carry through life.

“We’ll have a heated pool, a decent-size one with a deep end,” Henry said, “and I’ll teach you to swim.”

The driving lessons had ended in failure. If it had been anyone else but Henry instructing her, Fiona would have said he was a harsh and intolerant teacher. Of course she knew how inept she was. She could not learn how to manage the gears and she was afraid of the traffic.

“I’m afraid of the water,” she confessed.

“It’s a disgrace,” he said as if she had not spoken, “a woman of thirty being unable to swim.” And then, when she only nodded doubtfully, “Have you got the Times there?”

Building the pool took all the money the sale of Henry’s father’s house realised. It took rather more and Henry had to borrow from the bank. The pool had a roof over it and walls round, which were what cost the money. That and the sophisticated purifying system. It was eight feet deep at the deep end, with a diving board and a chute.

Happily for Fiona, her swimming lessons were indefinitely postponed. Henry enjoyed his new pool so much that he would very much have grudged taking time off from swimming his lengths or practising his dives in order to teach his wife the basics.

Fiona guessed that Henry would be a brilliant swimmer. He was the perfect all-rounder. There was an expression in Latin which he had uttered and then translated for her which might have been, she thought, a description of himself: mens sana in corpore sano. Only for “sana,” or “healthy,” she substituted “wonderful.” She would have liked to sit by the pool and watch him and she was rather sorry that his preferred swimming time was six-thirty in the morning, long before she was up.

One evening, while doing the crossword puzzle, he consulted her about a clue, as he sometimes did. “Consulted” was not perhaps the word. It was more a matter of expressing his thoughts aloud and waiting for her comment. Fiona found these remarks, full of references to unknown classical or literary personages, nearly incomprehensible. She had heard, for instance, of Psyche, but only in connection with “psychological,” “psychiatric,” and so on. Cupid to her was a fat baby with wings, and she did not know this was another name for Eros, which to her was the statue.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand at all,” she said humbly.

Henry loved elucidating. With a rare gesture of affection, he reached out and squeezed her hand. “Psyche was married to Cupid, who was, of course, a god, the god of love. He always came to her by night and she never saw his face. Suppose her husband was a terrible monster of ugliness and deformity? Against his express wishes” — here Henry fixed a look of some severity on his wife — “she rose up one night in the dark and, taking a lighted candle, approached the bed where Cupid lay. Scarcely had she caught a glimpse of his peerless beauty, when a drop of hot wax fell from the candle onto the god’s naked skin. With a cry he sprang up and fled from the house. She never saw him again.”

“How awful for her,” said Fiona, quite taken aback.

“Yes, well, she shouldn’t have disobeyed him. Still, I don’t see how that quite fits in here — wait a minute, yes, I do. Of course, that second syllable is an anagram of Eros...”

Henry inserted the letters in his neat print. A covert glance told her he had completed nearly half the puzzle. She did her best to suppress a yawn. By this time of the evening she was always so tired she could scarcely keep awake, while Henry could stay up for hours yet. People like him needed no more than four or five hours sleep.

“I think I’ll go up,” she said.

“Good night.” He added a kindly, “Darling.”

For some reason, Henry never did the crossword puzzle on a Saturday. Fiona thought this a pity because, as she said, that was the day they gave prizes for the first correct entries received. But Henry only smiled and said he did the puzzle for the pure intellectual pleasure of it, not for gain. Of course you might not know your entry was correct because the solution to Saturday’s puzzle did not appear next day but not until a week later. Her saying this, perhaps naively, made Henry unexpectedly angry. Everyone knew that with this kind of puzzle, he said, there could only be one correct solution, even people who never did crosswords knew that.

It was still dark when Henry got up in the mornings. Sometimes she was aware of his departure and his empty half of the bed. Occasionally, half an hour later, she heard the boy come with the papers, the tap-tap of the letter box, and even the soft thump of the Times falling onto the mat. But most days she was aware of nothing until Henry reappeared with her tea and the papers.

Henry did nothing to make her feel guilty about lying in, yet she was ashamed of her inability to get up. It was somehow unlike him, it was out of character, this waiting on her. He never did anything of the kind at any other time of the day and it sometimes seemed to her that the unselfish effort he made must be almost intolerable to someone with his needle-sharp mind and — yes, it must be admitted — his undoubted lack of patience. That he never complained or even teased her about oversleeping only added to her guilt.

Shopping in her lunch hour, she bought an alarm clock. They had never possessed such a thing, had never needed to, for Henry, as he often said, could direct himself to wake up at any hour he chose. Fiona put the alarm clock inside her bedside cabinet where it was invisible. It occurred to her, although she had as yet done nothing, she had not set the clock, that in failing to tell Henry about her purchase of the alarm she was deceiving him. This was the first time she had ever deceived him in anything and perhaps, as she reflected on this, it was inevitable that her thoughts should revert to Cupid and Psyche and the outcome of Psyche’s equally innocent stratagem.

The alarm remained inside the cabinet. Every evening she thought of setting it, though she never did so. But the effect on her of this daily speculation and doubt was to wake her without benefit of mechanical aid. Thinking about it did the trick and Henry, in swimming trunks and towelling robe, had no sooner left their bedroom than she was wide awake. On the third morning this happened, instead of dozing off again until seven-thirty, she lay there for ten minutes and then got up.

Henry would be swimming his lengths. She heard the paper boy come, the letter box make its double tap-tap, and the newspapers fall onto the mat with a soft thump. Should she put on her own swimming costume or go down fully dressed? Finally, she compromised and got into the tracksuit that had never seen a track and scarcely the light of day before.

This morning it would be she who made Henry tea and took him the papers. However, when she reached the foot of the stairs there was no paper on the mat, only a brown envelope with a bill in it. She must have been mistaken and it was the postman she had heard. The time was just on seven, rather too soon perhaps for the papers to have arrived.

Fiona made her way to the swimming pool. When she saw Henry she would just wave airily to him. She might call out in a cheerful way, “Carry on swimming!” or make some other humorous remark.

The glass door to the pool was slightly ajar. Fiona was barefoot. She pushed the door and entered silently. The cold chemical smell of chlorine irritated her nostrils. It was still dark outside, though dawn was coming, and the dark purplish blue of a pre-sunrise sky shimmered through the glass panel in the ceiling. Henry was not in the pool but sitting in one of the cane chairs at the glass-topped table not two yards from her. Light from a ceiling spotlight fell directly onto the two newspapers in front of him, both folded with their back pages uppermost.

Fiona saw at once what he was doing. That was not the difficulty. From today’s Times he was copying into yesterday’s Times the answers to the crossword puzzle. She could see quite clearly that he was doing this but she could not for a moment believe. It must be a joke or there must be some other purpose behind it.

When he turned round, swiftly covering both newspapers with the Radio Times, she knew from his face that it was neither a joke nor the consequence of some mysterious purpose. He had turned quite white. He seemed unable to speak and she flinched from the panic that leapt in his eyes.

“I’ll make us a cup of tea,” she said. The wisest and kindest thing would be to forget what she had seen. She could not. In that split second she stood in the doorway of the pool watching him he had been changed forever in her eyes. She thought about it on and off all day. It was impossible for her to concentrate on her work.

She never once thought he had deceived her, only that she had caught him out. Like Psyche, she had held the candle over him and seen his true face. His was not the brilliant intellect she had thought. He could not even finish the Times crossword. Now she understood why he never attempted it on a Saturday, knowing there would be no opportunity next morning or on the Monday morning to fill in the answers from that day’s paper. There were a lot of other truths that she saw about Henry. No one recognised his mind as first class because it wasn’t first class. He had lost that excellent well-paid job because he was not intellectually up to it.

She knew all that and she loved him the more for it. Just as she had felt an almost maternal tenderness for him when he left the newspaper with its completed puzzle exposed for her to see, now she was overwhelmed with compassion for his weakness and his childlike vulnerability. She loved him more deeply than ever and if admiration and respect had gone, what did those things matter, after all, in the tender intimacy of a good marriage?

That evening he did not touch the crossword puzzle. She had known he wouldn’t and, of course, she said nothing. Neither of them had said a word about what she had seen that morning and neither of them ever would. Her feelings for him were completely changed, yet she believed her attitude could remain unaltered. But when, a few days later, he said something more about its being disgraceful that a woman of her age was unable to swim, instead of agreeing ruefully, she laughed and said, really, he shouldn’t be so intolerant and censorious, no one was perfect.

He gave her a complicated explanation of some monetary quest ion that was raised on the television news. It sounded wrong, he was confusing dollars with pounds, and she said so.

“Since when have you been an expert on the stock market?” he said.

Once she would have apologised. “I’m no more an expert than you are, Henry,” she said, “but I can use my eyes and that was plain to see. Don’t you think we should both admit we don’t know a thing about it?”

She no longer believed in the accuracy of his translations from the Latin nor the authenticity of his tales from the classics. When some friends who came for dinner were regaled with his favourite story about how she had been unable to learn to drive, she jumped up laughing and put her arm round his shoulder.

“Poor Henry gets into a rage so easily I was afraid he’d give himself a heart attack, so I stopped our lessons,” she said.

He never told that story again.

“Isn’t it funny?” she said one Saturday on the golf course. “I used to think it was wonderful you having a handicap of twenty-five. I didn’t know any better.”

He made no answer.

“It’s not really the best thing in a marriage for one partner to look up to the other too much, is it? Equality is best. I suppose it’s natural to idolise the other one when you’re first married. It just went on rather a long time for me, that’s all.”

She was no longer in the least nervous about learning to swim. If he bullied her she would laugh at him. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t all that good a swimmer himself. He couldn’t do the crawl at all and a good many of his dives turned into belly-flops. She lay on the side of the pool, leaning on her elbows, watching him as he climbed out of the deep end up the steps.

“D’you know, Henry,” she said, “you’ll lose your marvellous figure if you aren’t careful. You’ve got quite a spare tyre round your waist.”

His face was such a mask of tragedy, there was so much naked misery there, the eyes full of pain, that she checked the laughter that was bubbling up in her and said quickly, “Oh, don’t look so sad, poor darling. I’d still love you if you were as fat as a pudding and weighed twenty stone.”

He took two steps backwards down the steps, put up his hands, and pulled her down into the pool. It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that she didn’t resist. She gasped when the water hit her. It was eight feet deep here, she couldn’t swim more than two or three strokes, and she made a grab for him, clutching at his upper arms.

He prised her fingers open and pushed her under the water. She tried to scream but the water came in and filled her throat. Desperately she thrashed about in the blue-greenness, the sickeningly chlorinated water, fighting, sinking, feeling for something to catch hold of, the bar round the pool rim, his arms, his feet on the steps. A foot kicked out at her, a foot stamped on her head. She stopped holding her breath, she had to, and the water poured into her lungs until the light behind her eyes turned red and her head was black inside. A great drum beat, boom, boom, boom, in the blackness, and then it stopped.

Henry waited to see if the body would float to the surface. He waited a long time but she remained, starfishlike, face-downwards, on the blue tiles eight feet down, so he left her and, wrapping himself in his towelling robe, went into the house. Whatever happened, whatever steps if any he decided to take next, he would do the Times crossword that evening. Or as much of it as he could ever do.

Splitting Heirs

by George Baxt

EQMM author George Baxt is becoming well known on the international literary scene of late, with the German translation of his novel The Greta Garbo Murder Case featured at the Frankfurt Book Fair and several other novels scheduled for foreign language publication. Here he treats a theme and characters only L.A. could provide...

* * *

Devotees of the obituaries in the Los Angeles Times (and they are legion) were titillated one Friday morning to read this one:

BENNETT, ARMAND: Age 44, of a sudden heart attack May 23. He leaves his wife of twenty years, Dr. Ruth Bennett, his mistress, and a pile of debts.

The mistress, who had a mental problem, was not amused, but the widow’s friends, acquaintances, and patients showered her with luncheon, dinner, and breakfast invitations and phoned to praise her audacious bravery. It was standing room only at his funeral and the Times sent a photographer. The widow sat in a front pew with her best friend, Maxwell Trumpet, an occasional writer for television soap operas whose own mountain of debts was all he had in common with the deceased.

Reverend Wister, said to be a descendant of Owen Wister, who had written the Western classic The Virginian, knew it was hopeless to eulogize the deceased as the obituary had itself become a classic within two days of its first publication, albeit it had been denounced by the pope and the Chinese Central Committee. Ruth Bennett had hoped there might be television or movie interest, but none had come forth to date, and she was still hopelessly mired in that pile of debts her husband had amassed and left as his dubious legacy.

Ruth and her friend Maxwell groaned as they heard the reverend extolling the late Armand as a respected certified public accountant (“Who had a problem with figures,” Ruth felt like shouting) who was a fine golfer and excelled at fly-fishing and contributed to the community chest. Said Ruth in a whisper to Maxwell, “I wish I knew how many community chests he’s contributed to.” Maxwell giggled and Ruth squeezed his hand. Good old Maxwell, thought Ruth as the reverend droned on about Armand’s good taste in neckwear, you can always count on good old Maxwell. He’s deeper in hock than even I am, and she was touched when he offered to pawn his late mother’s silver service to help defray the funeral costs. She squeezed his hand again and Maxwell wondered as he had wondered for over two decades if now there was some hope she’d go to bed with him.

Ruth’s thoughts were dwelling on the day Armand keeled over and the police arrived with the ambulance. One policeman questioned her and admired her for skillfully masking her bereavement. There was a tray of chocolates on the coffee table and she popped one in her mouth when he asked her, “Did your husband have a history of heart disease?”

“Not really,” said Ruth as she munched away. “He had a small disturbance about five years ago, but I always suspected it was indigestion. He liked to eat in exotic places, you know: Star of India, Mandarin Dynasty, McDonald’s.” She added with a sigh as she picked at a piece of caramel caught between two teeth, “Only last Monday I tested his heart and his blood pressure. Everything was quite normal then.”

“You’re your husband’s physician?”

“Yes. It’s cheaper.”

“And you signed the death certificate?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that a little unorthodox?”

“Why? We also have — had — a joint bank account.”

A real charmer, thought the policeman, whose name was Aubrey Winthrop. She also had great legs and a pretty face. Maxwell arrived as Armand’s body was being carried out of the apartment. Ruth accepted his hug as Aubrey wondered if there was anything going on between the two of them. But after further examination of Maxwell as he heard him consoling the widow, he decided they were just good friends, Maxwell having the kind of unappealing physical qualities that would consign him to the role of “good friend” for eternity.

Maxwell said to the policeman, “Forgive me for intruding, but the doctor and her husband and I have been good friends for many years. His death is a terrible shock. Why, only yesterday he crowed about swimming twenty lengths in his club’s swimming pool.”

The policeman clucked his tongue and said to Ruth, “Will you authorize an autopsy?”

“What for?”

“Some families permit an autopsy, especially in the case of a sudden, unexpected death.”

“Young man,” said Ruth authoritatively, “there is no such thing as sudden, unexpected death in my private canon. As a doctor, I know that death can strike at any time. Death is unavoidable. It comes to all of us. My husband always said he thought he’d die young.”

Maxwell agreed wistfully. “Yes, he always thought he would. The way he lived life to the hilt: drinking, eating, whor...” he caught himself, “...worn out by high living...”

“...And snorting crack,” said Ruth matter-of-factly.

Aubrey shot her a quizzical look and then decided against further investigation of her statement. He suspected she was pulling his leg. He wished he could pull hers.

A few days after the funeral, Ruth and Maxwell were brunching on the porch of a restaurant in West Hollywood. The topic under discussion was always a pressing one, their financial state. “Thank God for Armand’s insurance,” said Ruth as she bit into a buttered bagel. “It was even more than I dreamt. It’ll cover the funeral, the payments on the apartment, I can settle some of his debts, and...” she went suddenly silent. The way she looked, he was afraid she was about to go teary on him.

“What’s wrong, Ruth?”

“That cow he was seeing.”

“You’ve found out who she is?”

“She could be one of half a dozen. I’ve been through his papers, his address book, his Rolodex at the office. How that bastard covered his tracks! But I’ll tell you this — and may he burn in hell — he bought her an awful lot of expensive trinkets. And I have to pay for them.” She sipped her Bloody Mary. “She was madly in love with him.”

“How do you know that, if you don’t know who she is?”

“She sent him notes. I found some hidden away in the drawer where he kept his sports shirts.” There was a small smile on her face. “I don’t blame him for keeping them.”

“Gee Ruth, that’s very generous of you.”

“They said things I never said to him. I’m a doctor. I’m clinical. Cool. Self-contained.”

“You’re beautiful. You’re very beautiful.”

She shrugged. “The notes are all heat and passion. I was never like that with him. There’s nothing special about me. Not as a doctor. Not as a woman. But I loved Armand, I guess I just didn’t tell him often enough.”

“Did he tell you often enough?”

“Occasionally. We married very young. We were both innocent, unsophisticated, but we wanted each other desperately. And after five or six years, it began to wear off. Maybe if I’d been able to have children. But oh, what the hell, that’s in the past. Armand is dead. The insurance has me solvent again. I can hold my head up again. But once that money’s gone...? Who knows. What a way to live.”

“You should work at increasing your practice. You say you don’t meet expenses...?”

“That’s right. I don’t. I don’t specialize. Maybe if I had gone in for pediatrics...”

“It’s not too late, is it?”

“Right now, I have no enthusiasm for anything but this Bloody Mary. What about you, Maxwell? I can help you with a little cash. I won’t have much after I square all the debts.”

“Oh no no no. I can manage. I’m substituting for four weeks on Where Are My Children? They’re doing a leprosy story. I’ve got the hero at a leper colony off the coast of Madagascar and I’m going to keep him there until he’s found by Mike Wallace and he gets on Sixty Minutes and wins a five-million-dollar advance for his story from Simon and Schuster.”

“Sounds like fun.” She smiled. “And then what?”

“And then I pray my agent finds me something else. Oh God, why do I kid myself. I’m too old-for this town. They don’t want writers over thirty. They don’t want anybody over thirty. I have grey hair.”

“You’re a good writer.”

“There are plenty of so-called good writers in this town. Ah, let’s not get morbid. What we need are some laughs. We need Betsy Bering!”

“And who is Betsy Bering? She’s a new one on me!”

“She’s a nut I met when I was having breakfast the other morning at Angelo’s. I’d seen her there a few times and then we finally struck up a conversation. She’s a very funny lady. Very eccentric. And I suspect she’s very rich.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Her jewels. Very rich. I’ve been to her apartment.”

“Oh? Has it gone that far?”

“Don’t be cute. She invited me to tea. For want of anything better to do, I went.”

“Is she pretty? How old?”

“She’s pretty and she’s probably late thirties, early forties. She saw us at Armand’s funeral.”

Ruth’s eyebrows arched. “What was she doing at the funeral?”

He laughed. “The obituary. She thought it was so funny and she figured you probably wrote it, and it’s her kind of off-the-wall humor, so she wanted to see what you looked like. Anyway, she likes funerals.”

“One of those.”

“She called some local funeral parlors and finally found Dume Brothers, and they told her where and when the services were taking place.”

“Did she talk to me? Some strangers paid their condolences. I don’t remember any pretty woman, though.”

“She was going to, and then she decided not to. You were surrounded by so many friends.”

“Friends,” said Ruth with a snort. “That flood of invitations has certainly trickled down to a faucet drip.”

“You refused so many of them.”

“They were mostly his friends. You’re my only real friend, Maxwell.”

“I love you very much, Ruth. I wish you’d...”

She interrupted him abruptly. “Don’t. Please don’t. I’m not ready.”

He blinked his eyes rapidly and then said, “Betsy Bering asked me to bring you for drinks tonight. Say yes. I think you’ll enjoy her. She’s something new, someone fresh.”

“Does she do anything? Does she have a profession? Was she or is she married?”

“She’s divorced, a couple of years ago. She got a lot.”

“That’s what she told you.”

“I’ve got no reason to disbelieve her. What do you say?”

Betsy Bering lived in a very exclusive apartment building in Beverly Hills. Her apartment was simply, albeit tastefully furnished. It had two bedrooms and two full baths. The guest bedroom had a desk in it, and on the desk was a word processor that looked as though it was in frequent operation.

“I’m trying to write a novel,” explained Betsy after giving Ruth the tour and mixing vodka martinis. “You know, something awful that’ll become an instant bestseller like that Steel woman and Ivana. I read dozens of them before plunging in on my own, but they’ve left me intellectually paralyzed. Like when I go shopping, I find myself thinking in terms of heavy-breathing prose.”

“Such as?” prodded Ruth.

“Well, such as this.” Betsy got to her feet, breathed heavily, and then spoke in what she hoped were seductive tones. “ ‘Elvira entered Bullocks. Once inside, her chest was out of control. It took on a life all its own. He was there. The clerk at the ribbon counter. He didn’t belong there. Elvira could see him galloping across the desert, his steed snorting and puffing, ahead of him the oasis where Fatima awaited him. Instead he was measuring yards of ribbon for a middle-aged matron who was oblivious to his magnificent looks. Why was he a clerk at Bullocks?’ ” Betsy stood against a wall; her chest rising and falling like an ocean tide running amok. “ ‘Was he a spy? Had he been placed there by Macy’s?’ ” She burst into laughter. “It’s no use. I sit at that damned processor trying to write this stuff, but I can’t do it.”

Said Ruth, “My husband read those things. He doted on them.”

“Millions read them,” said Maxwell. “And like you, Betsy, I wish I could write them. I’m having enough trouble with my leper. The network warned me against anything falling off, you know, like his nose or his index fingers. Soap audiences don’t go for that sort of thing. They don’t mind suicides, car crashes, or latent homosexuals... but they draw the line at sophisticated physical disability.”

Soon the three were heavy into a discussion of mediocre writing. This led to another round of drinks and then the decision to dine together, and within a few weeks, Ruth, Betsy, and Maxwell were phoning each other daily, sometimes twice and three times. They learned that Betsy had come to Los Angeles from Toronto three years earlier following her divorce from a lawyer who not only came from wealth, but amassed a fortune of his own from representing a number of well-heeled shady characters, including a number of Caribbean dictators and South American drug dealers.

The three became inseparable, and soon, when Betsy realized Ruth and Maxwell were strapped for money, she insisted on helping. Ruth accepted Betsy’s contributions with alacrity, saying to Maxwell in private, “Well after all, Maxwell, Albert Schweitzer accepted donations.”

Betsy seemed to enjoy showering them with largess, though this largess never came in big sums. It was a tenner here, a twenty-dollar bill there, and once she let Ruth try on her tiara, a gift, she claimed, from a prime minister of Canada.

One afternoon, when Maxwell was busy at a television studio pitching an idea to a twenty-four-year-old production genius who ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches washed down with spring water, Betsy and Ruth were in Ruth’s apartment and the talk got around to the men in their lives.

Ruth asked, “The prime minister. Was it Massey? Were you very much in love with him?”

“Who? Massey?” Betsy seemed to be caught unawares. “Oh. Him. No. I promised him never to talk about him.” She sounded so reverential, Ruth wondered if she meant hymn. “The great love of my life is dead. And there will never be anyone to replace him. Never.”

Ruth cleared her throat. “I’ve never known a great love.”

“Armand wasn’t the great love of your life?”

“He was a fine person. He was fun at first. But I like to think there’s someone out there looking for someone like me.”

Betsy was fingering the strand of pearls around her neck. “You were married to him for twenty years and he was never ever your great love? Not even a great lover?”

“I have no way of making a comparison. He was the only man in my life. Like I told you, I was young, naive, and a slow starter. After the first three years of our marriage, it was Armand who accelerated, and I found myself marooned in a perpetual cloud of dust left by my accelerated husband.”

“How you must have hated him.”

“Oh no!” Ruth was quick to defend herself. “I never hated him. I don’t think I could have gone on living with him if I hated him. There were people in the past whom I grew to hate, but I dropped them. I don’t tolerate hatred, not in myself, not in anyone else.”

“Do you suppose you might grow to hate me?”

“Oh Betsy, what an awful thing to ask!”

One night at dinner at Betsy’s the hostess said to her two guests, “I have something to tell you.” She poured brandies and led them to the sofa and easy chairs. Comfortably seated, Betsy said, “You’re my two best friends. In fact, next to my lawyer, Bartlett Campbell, you’re the only people I trust. I have come to love you both. So I want you to know that I have made a new will, and you, my dear friends, are my sole beneficiaries.”

Maxwell heard Ruth gasp as he felt the blood rush to his cheeks. My God, he was thinking, how can you tell a poverty-stricken writer, one who deserves to be declared a disaster area, that he’s now the heir to a share of a great fortune. Ruth was struck dumb. The insurance money was long gone, and she was too shy and embarrassed to ask Betsy to increase her generosity.

“Oh, my poor darlings, this is such a shock. I didn’t mean it to be. I wanted to make you happy!” She lowered her voice. “I have no relatives; you see. I’m alone in the world. And, well...” she arose dramatically and positioned herself against double doors that led to a balcony that afforded a magnificent view of the San Diego freeway. “I didn’t want you to know. But now you must. I’m very ill. I’ve been ill for years. The real reason I came to L.A. was for medical treatment only available here.” Ruth and Maxwell found their voices and were remonstrating. “Please, please don’t, please. Let’s enjoy ourselves. Let’s have our luncheons and dinners and go to the theater and see terrible plays about ugly people in the barrios, and revivals of George Bernard Shaw with an all black cast. Come on now, let’s have more brandy and swap terrible jokes!”

Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and bills began piling up. “It’s awful,” Ruth said to Maxwell one Saturday evening when they dined alone, Betsy having arranged dinner with her lawyer, “knowing we’re to inherit all that money and today we can’t pay our bills. I have to admit it, Maxwell, I have to admit it,” the texture of her voice darkened, “I’m thinking a very terrible thought.”

“Me too.” He was barely audible. “Umm, er... Betsy’s been losing weight. The circles under her eyes are turning into crevasses.”

“And she’s barely eating. You know, I’m going to ask her if I can give her some vitamin shots. I wonder if her doctors give her any. She won’t tell me who they are. Has she told you?”

“No. As a matter of fact, I feel she’s gone a little quiet of late. Like, well, like she might wish it was all over with.”

“I wonder. Do you think she does?”

Betsy brightened at the suggestion of vitamin shots. “Not that I think they’ll really help.” She and Ruth were speaking on the phone. “Do you want to come over now?” Betsy asked Ruth.

“There’s no time like the present, if you’ll forgive a cliché!”

Betsy replied solemnly, “I do forgive a cliché.”

Several days later, the obituary in the Los Angeles Times read:

BERING, BETSY: Age 39, suddenly of a heart attack. There are no immediate survivors. Her friends Ruth and Maxwell are grief-stricken. Services will be private.

Betsy’s lawyer, Bartlett Campbell, invited Ruth and Maxwell to his office. Before going, they spoke on the phone, very excited at the prospect of hearing the terms of Betsy’s will, which, they presumed, was why they were asked to Campbell’s office. He was a handsome man in his sixties and introduced them to an associate, Walter Trance, who grunted his hellos and sat next to Campbell.

Campbell held a small white, sealed envelope. “Betsy left instructions for me to open this envelope in your presence in the event of her sudden death.” Ruth’s heart sank when she heard “sudden death.”

Maxwell said innocently, “Is this her will? She told us she was leaving everything to us.” Ruth bit her lower lip while hoping Maxwell might blissfully go mute.

Campbell extracted a folded sheet from the envelope. He read clearly and distinctly. Walter Trance leaned forward, looking as though he intended to pounce at the sheet of paper.

Campbell read, “ ‘Dear Bartlett, If I am dead of a sudden heart attack, you must tell the police you suspect foul play. Have an autopsy performed on my body, as I suspect they will find a foreign substance, a subtle form of poison that induces heart attacks. I strongly suspect that is what happened to Armand Bennett...’ ” There was a sharp intake of breath. Maxwell and Trance stared at Ruth. “ ‘My darling Armand, my heart, my soul, my lover.’ ” Ruth’s hands were so tightly clenched her knuckles showed white. “ ‘I have had no reason to live since his death. He was all I had, all I cared for. If it is proven that the vitamin shots given to me by Dr. Ruth Bennett were the same kind of vitamin shots that she insisted she give Armand, then for crying out loud nail the bitch. I’ve been playing her friend for months now, and let me tell you, it’s no cinch being a pal to someone I hate. I deserve an Oscar for my performance.’ ”

Campbell looked at Ruth and Maxwell. “Mr. Trance,” he explained, “is a detective. He’s a good friend. I suspected what this letter might contain, as she made it plain before she died that she suspected you, Dr. Bennett, of murdering your husband. And if you’re wondering about her will, she had very little to leave. She was nearly broke. Her jewels are mostly paste. The apartment she was living in was my wife’s. She lent it to Betsy.”

Ruth was frozen in her chair. Maxwell was aching to phone his agent. He needed a job desperately. Anything. Detective Trance said, “Don’t try to leave the city, either of you. The autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow. Until its results are known, you’re under constant surveillance.”

Maxwell was staring at Ruth. She looked different. She wasn’t the Ruth he loved. In this instant, he no longer loved her, he realized. In death, Betsy had succeeded in separating them. He wondered what Ruth was thinking. She was staring at the floor.

Ruth was thinking, I’m not feeling well. I feel weak. When I get home, I must give myself a vitamin shot.

The Spy with the Icicle Eye

by Edward D. Hoch

The breakup of the Soviet Union spawned much discussion amongst mystery writers, publishers, and editors as to what would become of spy fiction. But to answer that question, we must ask what has become of spies, as Mr. Hoch does in this latest Rand adventure...

* * *

Staring through the frosted windowpane at the snow outside, Rand could not remember a worse winter storm in all the years since he and Leila moved to Reading. It would have been a perfect day to remain at home by the fireplace. Leila was on her winter break from lecturing at the university, and she’d been urging him all morning to cancel his appointment in London.

“It’s letting up now,” he told her, examining the leaden sky. “The forecast is good for the rest of the day.”

“But why do you need to see this foolish little man at some computer place, for God’s sake?”

“Because he’s paying me,” Rand answered with a sigh. “The Cold War is over and there’s not much work for a retired cryptoanalyst.”

“You were much more than that, Jeffrey.” She liked to remind him of his days as Director of Concealed Communications for British Intelligence. Perhaps she felt it was good for his ego.

“In any event, it’s off to London on the eleven-ten. That should get me to Paddington Station in plenty of time to meet Sillabus for lunch at his club.” He kissed her quickly on the cheek. “Home for dinner or I’ll call.”

The railway journey took only twenty-two minutes, and even with the blowing snow they were on time. It was a short walk from Paddington to the club. Leila and Rand had met Harold Sillabus at a publisher’s party back in November, and he’d forgotten the man until he phoned. He wrote instruction books for computers and computer programs, and he wanted to hire Rand for a little job, he said.

Sillabus greeted him in the lobby of the club and led the way to a spacious dining room. “Terrible weather,” he muttered, “but I don’t have to tell you that. Someone told me that Londoners hate January and February, with these thick white skies and dreary days.”

“The snow is almost a relief,” Rand agreed. “At least it brightens things up a bit.”

Sillabus was not a Londoner and neither was Rand, born in Paris of British parents, though both men had spent many years there. They talked for a few minutes about the city before the short man cleared his throat to indicate it was time for business. A waiter arrived, as if on cue, to take their order.

“You see,” Sillabus began, “I do these books on computer programs. I guess you know all about that with your government experience. I hear that the entire science of cryptography is now computerized.”

“I’ve been retired more than fifteen years,” Rand murmured. “Things change.”

“Could you solve a computer-generated cipher?” he asked.

“It’s not my specialty. Sometimes they take years to crack.”

“This has nothing to do with espionage. I suppose it’s more in the nature of a game. You’re probably aware that some books, especially reference works like dictionaries, have actually been transferred to disks so they can be read off a computer screen. More recently, a few classics and even modern novels have appeared on disks. I believe there’s an illustrated version of Alice in Wonderland, and even one of these new techno-thrillers, complete with diagrams.”

“I guess I haven’t kept up with the newest technology in publishing,” Rand admitted. “I’m just getting used to audio books.”

“Well, a British novelist named Garson Wolfe has published — if that’s the word for it — a new fantasy novel available only on computer disk. He’s selling it for one thousand pounds per disk, and to add to the enjoyment, if that’s the word for it, the novel can only be read once. The disk is programmed to encipher itself after a single viewing, or if someone tries to copy it.”

“You want me to decipher it?”

“Yes, or tell me how to do it. A little booklet with the secret would sell quite well to computer addicts and fantasy fans.”

Rand thought about it. “You’re willing to pay for this?”

“The price of a disk. One thousand pounds if you can bring me the key to the cipher this week.”

“With a bit of luck I’ll do better than that.” The waiter arrived with their food. “Do you have one of these disks back at your office?”

“Yes. I purposely haven’t played it yet so you could see how the enciphering takes place.”

It was a short walk back to Sillabus’s office after lunch. The wind had let up a bit but there were still flurries in the air. They’d just reached the entrance to the small office building when the short man seemed to see someone he knew standing by the corner. “Just a moment, will you, Rand? I need a word with that chap.”

Rand watched with interest as he approached a tall man who wore a fur-collared leather coat of a sort not often seen in London. Surely he was from one of the Eastern European countries, or at least his coat was. The two men spoke for only a moment, then Harold Sillabus seemed to wave his arms in disgust and walk away.

“Who was that?” Rand asked.

“Someone who thinks the Cold War is still being fought.” He led the way toward the door.

“One thing I almost forgot. Is there a camera store near here, or any sort of place where I might purchase a Polaroid camera?”

“I have one in the office, specially fitted to take pictures of a television or computer screen, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Rand smiled. “That’s it exactly.”

Once inside the Sillabus office, Rand saw that it was far from being a million-pound business. A pretty, dark-haired woman was slitting envelopes with a slim letter opener, and seemed to be the only employee. She turned as they entered and Sillabus introduced her. “Janice Casey, this is Mr. Rand. He’s going to help us with the Garson Wolfe disk. Miss Casey is my business associate.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rand.” She shook his hand firmly. To Sillabus she reported, “That man Pryzic was here again looking for you.”

“I ran into him outside. The fellow is a fool or an idiot.”

Rand glanced at the shelves as they spoke, taking in the slender paperback volumes in something called the Sillabus Softwear Series. He took down a volume titled Windows, glanced through it, and put it back, aware of how little he understood about the latest developments in computer software. It was a constantly changing field, and with no day-to-day involvement he’d fallen behind. Still, he believed he knew enough to help Harold Sillabus with his problem.

“This is the disk,” the little man said, returning to his side. “I’ll insert it in the computer. Will this camera serve your purpose?”

“It should.”

Rand watched as the screen lit up with pleasant green type announcing The Wizard of Zo, a novel on disk by Garson Wolfe. He picked up the camera with its tapered, boxy frame that fit over the screen and focused it, then snapped the picture. Sillabus let the disk run on for some time while Rand photographed the screen, then went back to the beginning.

“You’ll see what I mean.”

The screen now showed the title and author as a jumble of letters without even spaces between them. Rand started photographing again. “I was hoping for something simpler,” he admitted. “This appears to be a progressive mathematical formula of some sort. It’ll take another computer to come up with the proper relationship between cipher and plaintext.”

“Can you do it?”

“I know someone who can.” Rand glanced at his watch. It was still snowing outside and he hated the thought of another trip into London the following day. “Maybe I can get back to you this afternoon, but I can’t promise that. I’ll either be back before five or I’ll phone you.”

“Very good, Mr. Rand. I’m in your hands.”

Rand gathered up the Polaroid photos. He put on his coat and said goodbye to Janice Casey on his way out. Then he hailed a taxi for his old office overlooking the Thames.

It was Rand’s first visit to Concealed Communications in nearly a year, and he was distressed at the number of empty desks. “We’ve been cutting back, like everyone else,” Parkinson explained, having met him at the elevator and escorted him in. “I certainly didn’t expect to see you turn up today, Rand, in all this snow.”

There was no love lost between the two of them. Rand had never approved of the manner in which Parkinson’s predecessor, his old friend Hastings, had been removed from his post. Now, having to ask Parkinson for a favor, he felt naturally reticent. But Parkinson too was ill at ease, and after Rand explained the nature of the problem he seemed relieved it was nothing more.

“We have a high-capacity computer that’s standing idle this very minute,” he assured Rand. “Follow me.”

The young woman operator was fast and efficient, and seemed thankful for any task to pass the time. Her name was Rose and she spoke to Rand as she typed in the necessary information. “I’ll wager it was a whole lot busier in your day, Mr. Rand.”

“It was indeed. This whole section was given over to just the Middle East. But there are no sides fighting for control anymore.”

Parkinson stood by, perhaps making certain that Rand didn’t wander around too much. “You’re assigning each letter a numerical designation from one to twenty-six?” he asked at one point.

Rand nodded. “And then starting over if necessary. There have to be numbers for a math formula to work.”

The head of Double-C snorted. “All this for a stupid game!”

“There!” Rose announced. “Message entered in plaintext and cipher. The computer can work through the math quite quickly.”

She was right, of course. In less than fifteen minutes Rand had the answer he sought. It involved squares and square roots of numbers translated back into letters. A stupid cipher, really, but adequate for its limited purpose.

“You owe us one, Rand,” Parkinson said, turning away.

Just then the phone on Rose’s desk buzzed. Even the sound of the telephones was different from what it had been in Rand’s day. She took the message and said to Parkinson, “Your secretary has the Pryzic file.”

He seemed to frown at her mention of a name in front of Rand, even if he had once been in charge of the department. “Fine,” he said, and turned to leave. “I’ll walk you to the elevator, Rand.”

“That’s good of you.”

It was not until he was out on the street, heading across Westminster Bridge, that he remembered where he’d heard the name Pryzic before.

Though he returned to Harold Sillabus’s office well before five, Rand found the door locked and the place seemingly deserted. He could hardly slip the results of his computer work under the door, so it meant another trip into London after all. He decided it would be a long time before he got himself involved in anything like this again.

He left the building and was searching for a taxi back to Paddington Station when he heard someone call his name. “Mr. Rand, please! A moment!”

It was the man Sillabus had called Pryzic, still in his fur-collared leather coat, bearing down on Rand from the corner. Close up, his face was like chiseled granite, with lips that pulled back threateningly from red gums and bad teeth. His left eye seemed oddly cold as he stared at Rand and said, “I saw you speaking with Sillabus earlier. Are you a friend of his?”

“Only an acquaintance. How do you know my name?”

“Your work is well known, even famous, in certain circles.” The eye seemed to bore into him as the leather-clad man spoke.

“My work? I’ve been retired more than fifteen years.”

“Nonetheless—”

“Have you been here long? Did you see Mr. Sillabus go out?”

“No, I did not see him. Come talk with me. I have something to tell you about Sillabus.”

The idea of talking to this stranger did not appeal to Rand. “I have a train to catch.”

“There is a pub around the corner. We can talk there.”

“I—”

The granite face allowed itself a slight smile. “There is nothing to fear. We are in London, no?”

The pub was a place called Seasons, and it was more of an upscale tavern than a traditional pub. Wooden wall plaques carried stanzas about each season by English poets, and the barmaids wore appropriate costumes. For winter they had white fur trim. Pryzic, as he had finally introduced himself, ordered a German beer and Rand joined him.

“You are doing work for Sillabus?” he asked as he slipped off his leather coat. Underneath he wore a brown tunic that could have been part of a uniform.

“Just a single job, and that’s about over. I was looking for him now, but the office is closed.”

“It is almost five.” His hands were long and tapered, constantly in motion as he spoke. “I too work for him, but he no longer pays me and now refuses to speak with me.”

Rand remembered Sillabus’s words: Someone who thinks the Cold War is still being fought. He studied the man across the table without reaching any firm conclusion. “What was it you wanted to tell me?” Rand asked after the beer arrived.

“Do not trust Sillabus. He works for both sides.”

“A double agent?”

“Correct.”

“You think the Russians are paying him?”

“Without a doubt.”

“But the Soviet Union no longer exists,” Rand argued.

Pryzic took on a sly expression. “Do not be deceived. Would the two of us, from opposite sides of the fence, be meeting like this if the war were over? I would be back on my farm in the Urals, and you would be at home in Reading — not walking the streets of London in the snow.”

Rand had to chuckle at the man’s logic. “I suppose you’ve got a point there.”

Pryzic glanced at his watch. “If Sillabus closed the office early he should have reached his apartment by now. Pardon me while I use the telephone.”

Rand doubted the little man would welcome a call from Pryzic, but it was not for him to say. Certainly he needed to make his escape as soon as he finished the beer. He knew now that he’d been foolish to accompany this man in the first place.

As the minutes passed without Pryzic’s return, Rand stood up to read the nearest of the seasonal wall plaques:

Old Winter

Let him push at the door, in the chimney roar,

And rattle the windowpane;

Let him in at us spy with his icicle eye,

But he shall not entrance gain.

— Thomas Noel (1799–1861)

The words reminded him of Pryzic’s own eye with its icy gaze. Then he heard the man’s voice behind him and whirled around, feeling somehow guilty. “Do you like the poem? A fitting Cold War message, don’t you think? Almost as eloquent as Churchill.”

“I suppose so,” Rand agreed, resuming his seat. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” He noticed the beads of moisture on Pryzic’s tunic. “Did you reach Sillabus?”

“No. Their phone was out of order here so I ran next door. But it did no good. No one answers at his apartment.”

“Is it still snowing out?”

“Just a bit.”

Rand downed the rest of his beer. “I really do have to catch that train.”

Pryzic seemed disappointed. “I had imagined a long, rich conversation about the years of the Cold War.”

“Perhaps some other time. You have given me your message about Sillabus and I’ll be on my guard. Thank you for the beer.”

Outside it was already dark. He phoned Leila to say he’d catch the six o’clock train home.

In the morning, Rand awakened to find that the previous day’s snow was already turning to slush as the temperature edged toward forty. “It’s good to see the sun, if only briefly,” he told Leila.

He was brushing his teeth when she came to tell him that Parkinson was on the phone from London. “What does he want after all this time?”

“I don’t know. I saw him briefly yesterday. He did me a favor with that Sillabus business.” Rand went into his library and picked up the extension phone. “Yes, Parkinson?”

The voice at the other end spoke without preliminaries. “You mentioned the name Harold Sillabus yesterday.”

“He hired me to work on that business I brought you.”

“Sillabus was found dead a half-hour ago. We just received word.”

“Dead?”

“In his office. His assistant found him when she arrived for work shortly after eight o’clock. He’d been murdered.”

Rand’s mind was reeling. “I went back yesterday afternoon but he wasn’t there.”

“This Miss Casey who found the body says he sent her home at four-thirty because of the snow. Looks as if he was killed shortly after that, before you arrived. Somewhere before five?”

Rand took a deep breath. “What’s your interest in all this?”

“Nothing special. I just thought you’d want to know.”

“Come on, Parkinson. Scotland Yard doesn’t phone you within a half-hour with news of every body they find. You had someone watching that office, didn’t you? There was something about a Pryzic file—”

“What does Pryzic mean to you?”

“Nothing. I never heard the name until yesterday. But we had a beer together when I returned to Sillabus’s place and found the office locked. I’m surprised your people didn’t report that.”

“They did.”

“I see.”

“I think we should talk, Rand. Will you be in London today?”

“No. One trip a week is more than enough.”

Parkinson grunted. “I’ll get back to you.”

“One thing more, before you hang up. How was Sillabus killed?”

“Stabbed through the left eye. Don’t know with what. The weapon seems to have melted away.”

After he’d hung up, Leila called out from the kitchen where she was preparing breakfast. “What did he want? Did he offer you your old job back?”

“No chance of that,” he replied, though he knew she was joking. He told her about Sillabus’s death.

“What does it mean?”

“That I’m out one thousand pounds.”

She thought about that as she squeezed the orange juice and set a glass in front of him. “You said this disk was something an author wrote?”

“A fantasy novelist named Garson Wolfe. I’m not familiar with his work.”

“Perhaps he’d be willing to pay for the work you’ve done in deciphering the disk.”

“I don’t want to blackmail the man, Leila! I can’t very well go to him and say that if he pays me a thousand pounds, I won’t make it public.”

“Of course not! In fact, I suppose you’d have to give it to him. But it might turn into something. Maybe he’ll hire you to work out a cipher for his next book on disk.”

“I hope not,” Rand replied with a grin. But her idea of contacting Garson Wolfe wasn’t a bad one. After breakfast he tried to find the man’s name in the London telephone directories without success. Then he called the company that had put out the novel on disk, but he was told firmly to write a letter and they would forward it.

Leila had gone off to meet a visiting professor at the university, and Rand was alone when the door chimes sounded. He peered out the front window and saw a black limousine pulled up in the slush out front. He sighed and went to the door. No one had ever been able to convince Parkinson that spies don’t drive around in flashy cars.

“Come in,” he said, throwing open the door.

Parkinson entered a bit hesitantly. “Sorry to bother you at home like this, Rand, but I felt we should talk further.”

“What about?”

“This man Pryzic. Why did you meet with him and what did you talk about?”

“He approached me as I was coming out of Sillabus’s office building. He called me by name and I’ll admit that stopped me. I saw him earlier talking with Sillabus.”

“What did Sillabus say about him?”

“He implied he was living in the past, still fighting the Cold War.”

“Indeed!”

Parkinson had removed his coat and settled in. Rand reluctantly brought him a cup of coffee. “Now it’s your turn to tell me about Pryzic. After all, you’re the one with the file on him.”

“He was an agent for the former East German government — one of the best, I’m told. He acted as a courier for top-secret messages and plans, and we never once caught him with anything. Perhaps after you do that sort of thing long enough it becomes the only life you know. The Berlin Wall came down, but Pryzic kept working. The Soviet Union collapsed and split apart, but Pryzic kept working. As near as we can tell, he’s spent the past year or so delivering imaginary messages to people who don’t exist, from people who no longer care.”

“He doesn’t seem crazy, except for the look in his eyes. His left eye seems as frozen as an icicle.”

“That’s a glass eye. Pryzic lost his as a young man, wiring bombs for terrorists. A small charge went off too soon.”

“He’s had quite a life.”

“We’d like to send him back to Germany and tell them to keep him, but even now we can’t prove he’s done anything wrong.”

“Pin the Sillabus killing on him and he’s out of your hair forever.”

“Do you think he did it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he out of your sight at all?”

“He ran next door to make a phone call, trying to reach Sillabus. But the man was probably already dead by that time.”

“The body was in that office all night. Scotland Yard can’t be too precise about the time of death.”

“Tell me something else. I’d like to contact Garson Wolfe, the author of that disk novel I brought you yesterday. Can you get me his address?”

“Scotland Yard has it. They’ll be questioning him as a possible suspect.”

“Suspect?”

“It may be that he heard about Sillabus’s plan to publish the computer program he used to encipher his novel. It would have been a blow to his pride, if not his pocketbook. Men have killed for less.”

“I hadn’t thought of that. I’d like to see him.”

“He works at home, lives in Slough. I can get the address and drive you over right now.”

It was obvious Parkinson was trying to involve him in the case and he wondered why. The death of a man like Sillabus could hardly be a matter of concern to British Intelligence. As for Pryzic’s involvement, he was living in the past, wasn’t he?

“Do you know who killed Sillabus? Was it our side?”

Parkinson smiled. “There are no sides anymore, Rand. You said so yourself.”

Garson Wolfe lived on a quiet residential street in Slough. The house was neat but modest, and a woman Rand took to be his wife answered the door. He’d persuaded Parkinson to wait in the car down the street so he could speak to the man alone. Now, to this woman, he said, “It’s very important that I see Garson Wolfe, if he’s at home.”

“He’s writing. I don’t know if I can disturb him.”

“Tell him it’s about Harold Sillabus.”

She returned in a moment with a tall, slender man behind her. “I’m Garson Wolfe,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“My name is Rand. I believe we have a mutual acquaintance — Harold Sillabus.”

“What about him?” Wolfe asked cautiously.

“He’s dead. He was murdered in his London office yesterday afternoon. Did you know about that?”

The writer frowned and shook his head. “I hardly knew the man, and I was never in his office. Look here, are you the police or something?”

“No. I was helping him solve the cipher you’re using on your computer disk — The Wizard of Zo.”

He gave Rand a fresh look. “I’d heard about his plan. He tried to obtain information from me, claiming it would help sales of my disk, but I wouldn’t cooperate. I suppose there’s no law against his solving it himself and publishing the results, but I wasn’t very happy about it.”

“Have the police questioned you yet?”

“Of course not! Why should they?”

“I think you’ll be hearing from them soon,” Rand said.

He left Wolfe and returned to the car where Parkinson waited. “What did you learn?”

“The police haven’t questioned him yet,” Rand said as Parkinson pulled away from the curb. “He only knew Sillabus slightly. The man approached him for help with the cipher, apparently, but Wolfe turned him down.”

“I’m driving into London to look at the murder scene next,” Parkinson said. “Want to come along and take the train back?”

“Why not? I seem to be involved in this whether I like it or not.”

The police technicians and investigators had already departed from the scene by the time Parkinson’s limousine pulled up in front of the familiar building. Parkinson had phoned ahead and established that Janice Casey, the dead man’s assistant, would still be there to let them in.

When they entered she seemed surprised to see Rand. “He said you were retired from this business,” she told him.

“Who said that? Sillabus?”

She nodded. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. “That’s why he hired you for the deciphering.”

Rand had barely noticed her on his previous visit to the office. Now this pretty, dark-haired woman in her thirties seemed almost like Sillabus’s successor. She wasn’t straightening up the office but seemed instead to be getting out letters and handling incoming mail, using her index finger to slit open the flap of a manila envelope.

“You seem to be trying to carry on the business,” Rand commented.

“Why shouldn’t I? My own money is in it. One-third of this is mine! I can’t afford to lose that, whatever happens to his share.”

“Does he have a wife?”

“Separated for years. I don’t know if they ever got officially divorced or not. She lives somewhere in France.”

Parkinson sifted through the papers on the desk, ignoring her annoyed expression. “What was his connection with the man named Pryzic?”

“Heaven knows! The man was haunting him lately. He’d wait on the corner and try to intercept us as we left. Harold had an old pair of binoculars in his desk and he took to looking out the window at the corners and the doorways to see if he was lurking there. I think the man is mad.”

Rand carefully opened one of the desk drawers and then another. He saw the battered, worn binoculars and took them to the window. The left lens was out of position and he had to straighten it as best he could before he could use them. But this day there was no sign of Pryzic, or his icy stare. If he knew about the murder, of course, there was no reason for him to come looking for Sillabus anymore. Rand returned the binoculars to the drawer.

“What time did you leave last night?” Parkinson asked her.

“I already answered all these questions for the police. Must I go through it again? Harold sent me home at four-thirty because the snow was getting worse. I usually work from eight to five with an hour for lunch, although both of us were quite flexible.”

“You intend to keep up the business?”

“I said so, didn’t I? The Sillabus Softwear Series has a large following. If his estate is willing to sell, perhaps I can own the entire company someday.”

As they were leaving, a bit later, Rand remarked, “She doesn’t seem to be mourning his death too much.”

“Maybe she killed him for his share of the business.”

But Rand doubted it. “This is the age of instant gratification, Parkinson. People don’t commit murder for a possible profit ten years down the road.”

“What about Garson Wolfe?”

Rand shrugged. “Your real interest isn’t this murder. It’s Pryzic. What do you suspect him of doing?”

“The same thing he was doing for the Soviet Union. Carrying plans, microfilm, computer chips. Some of them can be worth a fortune to unscrupulous European firms.”

“Is this what the former spies like Pryzic are doing these days?”

Parkinson nodded. “What else is there, between wars?”

Rand took the train back home to Reading. The death of Harold Sillabus didn’t really concern him, nor did Parkinson’s interest in the ex-spy Pryzic. For all any of them knew, Sillabus might have been stabbed through the eye by a thief trying to steal a typewriter.

But that night Rand’s dreams were bothered by the figure of the mysterious Pryzic, moving silently through the blinding snow — though there’d been only a few flurries flying when they met. Flurries that had stuck to the German’s tunic when he ran outside.

In his dream the figure came closer, until Rand could clearly see the icicle growing from the very center of his eye. Could tears freeze? They were salty, and the salt would keep them from freezing, wouldn’t it? His mind churned as the nightmare intensified.

He woke suddenly, remembering the dream and the eye.

In the morning he phoned Parkinson at his unlisted number. “Two questions — do you still have people watching Pryzic?”

“Of course, but I don’t know for how much longer. Last night he just hung around that bar, Seasons, where you drank with him.”

He’s waiting, Rand thought. “Second question — have you seen the autopsy report on Harold Sillabus?”

“Of course not! We’re hardly Scotland Yard. We don’t see autopsy reports except in highly unusual circumstances.”

“Get a copy of this one and call me back. I especially want to know if any ocular tissue or fluid was found in the wound.”

“What?”

“Get back to me,” Rand said and hung up.

It was an hour later when the phone rang. Rand scooped it up and heard Parkinson say, “Not a thing there. I spoke to the pathologist myself and he thought it very odd, considering the location of the wound. They’re doing a more detailed examination.”

“I’m coming in on the next train,” Rand decided. “Have someone meet me at Paddington Station.”

By a little after one, he’d joined Parkinson at the office. “What’s it all about, Rand?” the younger man asked.

“Can you tell me where Pryzic is right now?”

“At Seasons enjoying a pint.”

“Alone?”

“Alone. Garson Wolfe showed up at the Sillabus office about an hour ago, and he’s taken the Casey woman there for lunch. But they have a booth around the back, nowhere near Pryzic at the bar.”

Rand glanced at his watch, calculating the time it would take to reach Seasons. “Come on, Parkinson. I hope we’re not too late.”

“Too late for what? I’m not going anywhere unless you tell me what you’re up to.”

“Remember the binoculars at Sillabus’s office yesterday? He used them to look out the window in search of Pryzic. But I found that the left lens wasn’t in its proper position. No one could have used a pair of binoculars like that — except a one-eyed person.”

“What? What are you saying? Pryzic’s the man with one eye, not Sillabus!”

“Pryzic’s artificial eye is more noticeable simply because it was less skillfully made. The autopsy report confirmed what I already suspected. Sillabus was not stabbed through his left eye, because he didn’t have a left eye. He was stabbed through the empty socket after the eye was removed.”

“Rand, what are you saying? Two men with artificial eyes?”

“Of course. All those years of the Cold War, Sillabus managed to pass secrets to Pryzic without detection, even while under surveillance. Their trick was as simple as it was bizarre. They exchanged their artificial eyes.”

When they reached Seasons, Pryzic was still seated at the bar, wearing a tunic much like the one he’d been wearing two days earlier. Parkinson nodded slightly toward two middle-aged women at a nearby table — obviously today’s minders assigned to Pryzic — and then continued on to the rear room of the establishment. Janice Casey was just paying the bill at their booth. Across from her, Garson Wolfe seemed startled to see Rand again.

“Well,” he said, turning his gaze to Janice Casey. “Is this something you arranged?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you tell the police I’d threatened you?”

“I’m not police,” Rand told him. “I know nothing about any threats. Maybe I should.”

“He said he’d sue me if I went ahead with the Sillabus booklet on his softwear cipher.” She handed the payment to their waitress and waved her away. “You’ll have to excuse us now. I must get back to the office.”

Rand moved to her side, not certain what to do. Behind him, Wolfe was growing more disturbed. He’d seen Parkinson now, and was certain something was wrong.

As the four of them moved through the dining room and past the bar, Rand felt as if everything was coming together too quickly. The middle-aged women were leaving their table, Garson Wolfe was turning to stare at them—

And suddenly Janice Casey stepped to the bar and offered the barmaid a five-pound note. “Could you break this for me, please?”

“Yes, certainly.”

Janice Casey stood beside Pryzic while she waited for her change, but they didn’t speak. He lifted his glass and drained it as she accepted the five one-pound coins and turned away.

Rand moved quickly, catching Pryzic’s hand as it slid along the edge of the bar. In the doorway, Janice Casey saw what was happening and bolted into the street. “Get her, Parkinson!” Rand shouted.

His hands were busy with Pryzic, loosening his grip on the small wrapped object that had been stuck to the underside of the bar. He tore away the cloth and held it in the palm of his hand.

“That’s an eyeball!” Garson Wolfe said with a gasp.

Later, back at Parkinson’s office overlooking the Thames, he and Rand sat examining the intricate workmanship of the artificial eye. It had taken them some minutes to even find the place where it unscrewed into two sections.

“Hollow,” Parkinson said. “And the threads are perfectly machined.”

Inside the hollow eye was a tiny padded compartment, just large enough for a bit of microfilm, or for the microchip it now held. “What do you think?” Rand asked.

“I’d guess it’s one of the most advanced designs, from Britain or America. The right country, the right company, might pay a million pounds for it. So Sillabus and Pryzic were still in business after all.”

“For industrial espionage? Well, Pryzic certainly was. But I suspect Sillabus didn’t want to deal with him any longer. That was why the German took to hanging around on the corner and at Seasons. Sillabus must have known there were a thousand ways he could smuggle something as small as a computer chip out of the country. He didn’t need Pryzic’s eye to do it. His own eye would have served just as well, and it looked more real. With security relaxed, there was no—”

“Then Pryzic killed him for it?”

“No, no! That was Janice Casey, his assistant and junior partner. You see, it was obvious at once that Pryzic couldn’t be the murderer.”

“How do you come to that conclusion?” Parkinson asked, showing his familiar displeasure at Rand’s feats of reasoning.

“Because Sillabus’s artificial eye was removed and he was stabbed through the eye socket to hide the fact. If Pryzic had killed him, he would have stabbed him elsewhere and exchanged glass eyes, as I believe they had so many times in the past. Sillabus could have been buried with Pryzic’s eye without anyone being the wiser. The killer stabbed him there because there was no glass eye to substitute.”

“All right. But maybe Wolfe killed him, or someone else. Why the woman?”

“She said Sillabus sent her home at four-thirty because it was snowing hard, but that was the time I met Pryzic and had a drink with him only a block away. It was hardly snowing at all then. Pryzic ran next door in his tunic and returned with only a few flakes on him. Also there was a slim letter opener that Janice Casey was using the first time I visited the office. I didn’t see it when we went back yesterday. She was opening a manila envelope with her index finger. That opener could well have been the murder weapon.”

“That’s speculation,” Parkinson grumbled.

“But what really convicts her is that we caught her passing Sillabus’s glass eye to Pryzic. He must have phoned her after the killing and they worked out a deal. While it was simple for Sillabus to travel abroad with the eye in place and escape detection, it would have been much harder for her if she was searched by customs. Better to sell the eye to Pryzic and let him take it out. You can see how skillfully it’s machined. Even a customs agent who knew about Pryzic’s eye arid examined it might miss the fact that it unscrewed. Today she had the eye with her at Seasons, and when she asked for change she merely stuck it under the bar next to Pryzic. I assume money arrangements had already been made. When we walked in there today and I saw Janice Casey paying the bill, that implied she chose the place rather than Wolfe. Having him along was a convenient cover for her.”

When Janice Casey finally told her story, it was somewhat different. She claimed that Sillabus had removed his eye to insert the valuable new microchip, obtained from one of his shady contacts in the computer world. When he stepped away from his desk for a moment she’d picked it up. He flew into a rage, thinking she was stealing it, and attacked her. She’d stabbed him with the letter opener in self-defense.

By the time he learned of this statement, Rand’s interests had shifted elsewhere. It was a new season, and all the icicles had melted.

Jeremy

by R. M. Kinder

R. M. Kinder is the author of a number of published short stories including a collection entitled Sweet Angel Band, the winner of last year’s Willa Cather fiction contest. As far as we know, this is the author’s first suspense piece, a vivid and memorable depiction of the genesis of a chilling crime...

* * *

More than anything else, the five-year-old boy wanted to be touched, but he didn’t actually know that. He felt it, a longing that made him draw near to his mother whenever she stood or sat still, which was rarely. Then he would wait a few inches away and if she didn’t seem tired or angry, which he recognized again by a sense he was too small to identify, he would eventually lean into her, or sit by her feet. Once, when he had been able to sit near her for a longer time than usual, while she spoke with a visiting neighbor, he had gently taken her hand and when she did not immediately pull it away, he had been so overcome with a pleasant feeling that he had kissed the back of the hand.

“For God’s sake, Jeremy,” she had said, “that’s sickening.”

He sometimes thought of that day, and felt her words, and it made him keep his distance as he knew he was supposed to do. He knew never to approach her when someone else was in the house. She was a busy woman and he understood busy very well.

He learned to cherish every gift she gave, and he thought they were many. “My mother makes me eat breakfast,” he told another child at kindergarten, and then enumerated each item he had eaten for dinner the night before and for breakfast just that morning. He tested her sometimes, going outside without a coat, or leaving part of his milk, or not brushing his teeth, and he would hear, “Jeremy,” and feel relief that she loved him enough to notice. He would turn back to complete his part of the communion, mimicking the angry walk of other boys.

She liked him to read, and he made a bond with her that when his father was home and Jeremy was not to watch the terrible shows on television, he could stay in the room if his eyes were down. He had a small reclining chair which she had herself upholstered, and he would rest his elbows on the arms and hold the book squarely before him, reading only enough to respond if she were to ask him what he read, and faithfully turning a page every few minutes.

Sometimes his father said, “Jeremy, want to...” and completed it with things Jeremy might have enjoyed, a trip to the store, a walk, an ice cream. Sometimes Jeremy did go with his father, but along came the uncomfortable awareness of her at home alone, impatient, announcing when they arrived how long-they had taken. If she came, it was worse. He might at any moment do something terribly wrong, spill ice cream on his clothing or the floor, sit in a ridiculous way. He preferred the comfort of the little recliner, an arm on each side, his eyes focused on one world, his ears on another. Other children occasionally had babysitters, he knew, and he thought that strange, that parents would risk their child to just anyone, which his mother had never done and would never do.

He became very adept at looking at one place and being in another, at taking his love and pleasure from nooks and crannies no one else knew.

When he was eight, she doled out chores and freedoms, since he was a big boy now. He came home right after school and she would assign the next few minutes, to sweep the porch, carry out the trash, stack the week’s newspapers in the garage. She never gave him too much to do, and when guests came she would introduce him and he would hear his name in their conversation, what he did, how well he did it. She urged him to play and named the boys she liked, and he would straggle down the street, stand in some yard, join in some game. He played the way she would have wanted him to, neatly, fairly. She bought him a watch so he wouldn’t come home too early or too late.

When she touched or kissed his father, or just sat beside him, Jeremy would watch without looking, intensely, feeling himself there between them, in them, and fearing discovery so that he sat rigid until they separated.

“What’s wrong with you,” his father said once, and Jeremy couldn’t speak because he wasn’t back together yet.

As he grew older he learned what this was, this leaving of himself, and he practiced in his room at night. First, he tried only his hands. He closed his eyes and tried to withdraw his fingers as from a glove. When he succeeded, it was in a dream, and he woke panicked and sweaty because he had been unable to slide back in. But as he was whole, capable of touching the blanket and turning on the lamp, the fear eased and he flexed his hands to rest them. Each night then, unless he was tired, he withdrew more and more from himself. He never left his room though, even when he knew he could, that he could grip the doorknob and turn it and stand listening. He learned to do it even while he read, and then, much later, to let the other read. Sometimes they looked at one another, and he grew accustomed to that face shaped much like his father’s, to the dour expression much like his mother’s. “Can you talk?” he asked, and heard the simple, “Yes,” with which he himself would have responded. He approved of the grace and restraint of the other.

They talked. Not often, but enough so that Jeremy understood their desires were not the same. Jeremy could see no reason to leave this place, though he admitted they would have to some day. Once he fell asleep with the light on and woke in complete darkness to hear, “I want to go now. I can’t stay here any longer.” The voice was so terribly sad that Jeremy threw back the covers and stumbled toward the sound. He felt his hand taken and himself drawn near, and was so touched that he stood there embracing the other till he realized they had joined again. “Come back out,” he said, but nothing happened. “Please.” He lay down and closed his eyes. “You don’t have to be ashamed,” he said. “Not with me.”

Each night now he woke to sobbing and he whispered reassurances that they would leave.

“When?”

“Soon,” he said. “I have to think where, how.”

“We just leave. I could, go now. No one would know.”

“No. Don’t. You can’t go without me.”

“But I can. I did.”

Jeremy turned on the light. The other was seated across the room, heavier, a dark stubble on his cheeks. He glanced quickly at Jeremy and then at the floor.

“I went into the hall one night. Tonight I went outside.”

“Out of the house?”

“Into the garage.”

“You didn’t.”

“Your father backs the car in.”

“Promise me you won’t do it again. Promise.”

“I won’t.”

“You won’t go, or you won’t promise?”

The other didn’t answer. He stood, and his height surprised Jeremy, who watched himself move toward the bed slowly, and lean down close and fade inside. “Answer me,” Jeremy said to the empty room.

Jeremy taped the door shut and fought sleep to hold the other in. But some mornings the tape was broken and he knew from his own exhaustion how far he must have gone.

“Are you slipping out at night?” his father asked. “You look like you’ve got a hangover.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he’s not slipping out. He wouldn’t do that. Would you?”

“No,” he said. He woke that night to find his bedroom door open, and he rushed into the hallway whispering, “Get back here. Get back here now.” His parents’ door was open and he stepped inside, saw the shadow in the chair across the room. He didn’t dare speak, didn’t dare look toward the bed. He gestured, pleaded with his mind, backed out quietly when the other stood.

“What were you doing?” he said, when they were back in his room. “My God. In their bedroom. What if they had wakened?”

“Let them. Do them both good.” He lay down where Jeremy usually lay. “I don’t like them, you know.”

Jeremy stood quietly a moment. Then he lay down, too. “I know,” he said. “I wish you did, but I understand.”

Jeremy could do nothing to keep him from his parents’ room. He would wake, aware of danger, to hurry to the hallway so he could be nearby if they awoke. The other was coarser now to Jeremy, and seemed larger even than himself. He said terrible things, sometimes using Jeremy’s own lips.

“I could kill them,” he said once, in a soft voice. “And no one would know.”

“I would.”

The other laughed with Jeremy’s voice.

Jeremy knew when it was going to happen. In the kitchen his eyes were caught by the glint of knives; outside, by stones. When he tied the newspapers in the garage, his hands braided the twine thicker, knotted it. “Oh don’t,” he whispered.

“I need to leave,” he told his mother.

“What do you mean, leave? Dinner will be ready in ten minutes.”

“I mean leave the house. Move away.”

“When the right time comes, I’ll help you do just that. But that’s a year or two in the future.”

He took hammer and nails from his father’s tool chest, put the nails in his pocket, the hammer in his waistband. He put them in his dresser. “Shut up,” he said.

When dinner was over and his parents sat in the living room before the television, he went to his room and closed the door. He pushed and tapped the nails in. Every now and then he would kick the door lightly to mask a final drive of the hammer. It still took a long time.

He had to leave, but he didn’t know how.

He heard them go to bed. He didn’t undress or turn out the light, but he got under the covers. He kept his eyes open, but it didn’t work. He tried to hold the other in, then pull him back. He threw his arms around the thick chest and tugged, but was shaken off. The hammer was taken up, the nails jerked out wildly, and Jeremy raced down the hall, finally even yelling, “Stop, stop, for God’s sake stop,” but there was nothing he could do. He wasn’t big enough or strong enough. He was thrown out of the room and the door shut in his face. When it opened again, he didn’t need to see what was in there. He had heard it. He followed himself through the kitchen, into the garage. “Come back,” he said. “Come back.” He stood there a long time. Then he went in the kitchen and wiped up the floor and folded the rag neatly on the washer. He took his father’s keys from the wall hook and returned to the garage. He started the motor. He lay down in the seat to wait for the other to return.

No Apparent Malice

by Terry Mullins

When the murder victim is the life of every party, a hail-fellow everyone appears to like, the problem, series sleuth Denver Styx discovers, may be not too many suspects, but none at all...

* * *

The night before the murder there had been a party. As Denver Styx tried to remember details of it, Lieutenant Horn prodded him from time to time— Which guests were there when he arrived; how did new guests act when they arrived; what gestures did they make? Denver was not sure the prodding was helpful. He preferred to present the facts in his own way, but the detective had something special on his mind and Denver was forced to go along with him.

He looked around the lieutenant’s utilitarian office and found little in it to stimulate him, few touches of civilization. Horn’s assistant sat writing down every word that was said, like a studious but unimaginative undergraduate taking notes on his lectures.

“Sam Tarn crashed the party at about ten o’clock,” he reported. “He and his wife had obviously been drinking and they just barged right past Fine.”

“He didn’t invite them in, then?”

“On the contrary, when he answered the door he said, ‘I’m sorry, Sam, but I have a few friends over tonight. Come back another time.’ ”

“And what happened then?”

“Tarn gave a sort of happy whoop and shouted, ‘A party! We’re in luck, Dolly. There’s a party.’ And the two of them swept in past Fine and into the living room. They knew more than half the guests and went about hugging and kissing them as if they hadn’t seen them for years.”

“One of the other guests said they added life to the party,” Horn suggested.

“You could put it that way. We had been having an animated conversation about trends in modern art. Tarn and his wife put a stop to that. The whole affair became a lot more boisterous than it had been before.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“I guess in a way I did. I would have preferred to go on with the discussion we had been having. There were some very intelligent people there, some of whom I’d met for the first time. They had provocative and well-informed views. The evening had been turning into one of those rare stimulating exchanges of ideas.”

“Highbrow?”

“I suppose so.”

“And Sam Tarn wrecked it.”

“He didn’t exactly wreck it. He interrupted it. He changed the whole tenor of the evening.”

“Had you met him before?”

“I had met both of them on a few social occasions informally, not to speak with at any length. I also dealt with Sam in a business way. I’d never met either at a party before. It was a revelation.”

“Did you like him?”

“I liked him the way one likes a large friendly dog with muddy paws.”

The detective laughed. “So you enjoyed the party even after Sam Tarn interrupted it.”

“He was entertaining. At one point he lined up twelve wineglasses on the table and poured different levels of wine into them. Then he played tunes on them with a spoon. He pulled it off quite well at first, clowning around to get just the right level in each glass, filling the glass to the full and drinking off the excess. He played ‘Mona Lisa’ on the glasses. Then he and his wife sang while he played. They spoiled the whole thing by putting some very objectionable lyrics to the song. He wound up with a flourish that cracked two of the glasses and shattered a third. His wife thought it was hilarious.”

“But Fine did not.”

“No, he certainly didn’t. He apparently had been anticipating something like that. His wife mopped up the mess while he restrained Tarn, who wanted to snatch the tablecloth off with one quick flip and leave everything on the table as it was. He claimed to have performed that trick successfully on stage at a children’s program. Fine wasn’t about to let him try it with a wine-drenched tablecloth and a table full of fine china and crystal.”

The detective looked over his notes and made a brief addition. When he resumed, it was with a definite objective. “Did you see any conflict between Fine and Tarn?” he asked.

“As I said, he tried to keep Tarn from coming in and he restrained him from pulling off the tablecloth.”

Horn waited.

“I suppose,” Denver continued, “that you are referring to what he said about his wife?”

“That’s it. What did you hear?”

“Others were closer than I was. What I heard from halfway across the room was Fine saying, ‘Keep your hands off my wife.’ ”

“Were those his exact words?”

“Yes.”

“But that didn’t break up the party?”

“No. It continued for more than an hour after that with Tarn clowning around as before.”

“You were the last to leave the party. Any special reason?”

“When the other guests began to leave, Fine asked me to stay until he got rid of Sam and Dolly Tarn.”

“Did he say why he picked you?”

“He didn’t have to. I’m young and athletic. Most of the rest of the guests were middle-aged and sedentary. Dr. Bell must be in his late sixties. Also, some of the others were friends of Sam Tarn.”

“Did you have any trouble getting rid of him?”

“Not real trouble. Sam was still rarin’ to go. As Thackeray put it:

A moment yet the actor stops

And looks around to say farewell.

It is an irksome word and task;

And when he’s laughed and said his say

He shows, as he removes the mask,

A face that’s anything but gay.

No, he and Dolly didn’t want to leave, but Fine told them to go, that he and I had things to talk over.”

“Did you?”

“We talked for a while about the way Tarn changed the whole tenor of the party. Fine promised that sometime we would pick up the discussion where it had been interrupted.”

“Thank you, Professor Styx. You have been most helpful. You may go now.”

The detective rose and shook hands. Denver paused before leaving. “Do I gather that you suspect Fine of murdering Sam Tarn?”

“I would if he didn’t have an alibi. He seems to be the only person with a reason for killing Tarn. Everyone else liked him.”

“Yes, he had a way with him.”

Some events, even important or delightful events, pass quickly from our consciousness. Other events, even trivial ones, prey on our minds. We turn from them to other things. Then, during a lull in activity, we find we are thinking about them. Thus it was that two hours after his interview with Lieutenant Horn, Denver laid aside a text on humanism in the fourteenth century and found his mind pondering his half hour of questioning.

It wasn’t worry that brought the matter to his mind. He and his friends, the Fines, seemed in the clear. But the question remained: Who would kill such a hail-fellow well met as Sam Tarn — and why? He reached for the morning paper to study its account of the murder with some care. It read:

Sam and Dolly Tarn were returning to their suburban home at three o’clock last night when they were approached by a man wearing a ski mask. Mrs. Tarn had just unlocked the door when she turned and saw him emerge from the shrubbery. She screamed and ran into the house. She heard a scuffle and shots. She called the police and shouted for help. The man fled on foot, leaving Mr. Tarn bleeding on his own doorstep. Police rushed him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead of multiple gunshot wounds in the chest. Police are seeking a male Caucasian of average height and weight. They have no suspects but are questioning neighbors and friends of the dead man and are following up several leads.

Denver recalled the Tarn home, a house surrounded by bushes, several of them eight feet tall. Neighboring houses were evenly spaced three hundred feet from it.

The same pattern held for other houses in the block. It would be easy for someone to sneak up unobserved. Only the people directly across the street could have seen anything. At three in the morning, they were probably asleep.

Police had found no sign that the man had tried to break in. Their theory was that he had planned all along to kill Sam Tarn and was waiting for them. Denver agreed. And that meant that the killer was someone who knew Sam Tarn’s habits very well indeed.

Denver decided that he wanted a firsthand account of the events. A condolence call on Dolly Tarn seemed the best way to proceed. He put aside his work and started out.

Their place was within walking distance and friends’ cars would doubtless be cluttering up the street, so he decided to go on foot. That way he could get a better idea of the murderer’s possible escape route.

As he walked, his mind reviewed what he knew about the couple. Sam Tarn was a stockbroker, extremely wealthy and popular. Genial and handsome, he seemed the average man’s image of a successful young tycoon and the average woman’s image of a rich and dashing Prince Charming. He drove a Mercedes and Dolly drove a Volvo. They bought new care every two years. Sam made money easily and spent it freely. His better half helped him spend.

Dolly was a roly-poly woman with wonderfully round face, breasts, and hips. In another ten or fifteen years she would be fat, but now she was cute and cuddly, very cuddly. The middle-aged couples who formed the Tarns’ inner circle found them both irresistible.

Denver had liked them, but had limited contact with either; he was not a middle-aged millionaire.

When he reached their block, he found the area jammed with automobiles, as he had expected. He tried to picture the place at three in the morning. The newspaper account said the murderer had escaped on foot. No sensible person would go through this wealthy suburban neighborhood on foot very far. He would be much too conspicuous. Even in broad daylight, Denver felt out of place walking. In places like this, one’s feet only took one from garage to front door and back again. Where the garage was part of the house, there wasn’t even that exercise.

So the killer either lived nearby or had a car parked at no great distance.

As he turned into the path leading to the house, a small mob of visitors poured out of the front door. He knew most of them and exchanged greetings and conventional expressions of outrage at the murder.

A few visitors had remained, and he was greeted at the door by the cultured and stately Mrs. King, wife of a bank vice president. “I’m so glad you came,” she said. “Poor Dolly needs all the support she can get.”

She led him into a reception room where the bereaved widow rushed up to him as if he were a long-absent relative instead of a casual acquaintance. He found himself giving support in a literal sense, for she threw her arms around him, buried her head on his collarbone, and burst into tears. He was disconcerted, but not displeased, to be holding in his arms an extremely attractive woman with whom he had only shaken hands before. He patted her shoulder tenderly and she responded by squeezing her arms even tighter around him and letting her weeping subside into great slow sobs. No one paid any attention. It appeared to be her usual way of responding to sympathy.

Denver looked down and addressed appropriate expressions of condolence toward a small ear which was wedged against his neck. She responded with several quivers and an attempt to control her sobbing. There was, however, no relaxation of her embrace, and Denver began to feel embarrassed. He looked about for help but found none. He made the mistake of patting her shoulder again and she snuggled even closer, a thing Denver would have thought impossible.

Finally, he caught the eye of the bank vice president’s wife. Mrs. King regarded him with amusement for a moment and then responded to his silent appeal for help.

She came over and babbled a bit, addressing first Denver and then Dolly, saying how nice it was that friends came to comfort her. In order to reply, Dolly had to remove her face from Denver’s jacket and her head from his shoulder. Gradually they became disentangled and he was able to breathe again. The three of them joined two other couples who had come to comfort the widow but who were currently denouncing the police for not doing anything and for subjecting them to several hours of questioning.

Denver knew all four. The elderly man and woman were the Bells, who lived across the street from Dolly Tarn. He was a retired surgeon and she was a dress designer. The middle-aged man and his young wife were Cob and Farah Puckett. He was a computer programmer. Denver listened to them intently.

While demanding that the police find Sam’s killer, they were systematically planning to subvert all their efforts. Denver found that amusing. He was sure that Horn came up against such people all the time and knew how to handle them. But then the conversation took an ugly turn.

Cob Puckett began it by saying with a note of satisfaction, “I understand that they are concentrating on Buck Fine.”

Tod Bell said, “Yes. All of us who were at Fine’s party have been grilled especially hard by the police. Denver here is the latest. How did they treat you?”

Denver replied that Horn had wanted to know about the party but it had seemed fairly routine to him.

“Don’t you believe it, Denver,” Cob replied. “Buck is their best suspect and they are out after him. The rest of us liked Sam. Buck didn’t. You saw the way he tried to keep him out. And he practically accused him of having an affair with his wife.”

Farah Puckett was uncharacteristically silent, but Louise Bell dismissed the suggestion that the police had any one person targeted. “I think it was a burglar who was surprised by Sam and Dolly. He panicked, shot Sam, and ran away. I just wish we had seen him. We didn’t wake up until the police came. All those flashing lights and noise scared us out of our wits.”

“But he didn’t take anything. Sam had a couple thousand dollars on him. He always did. And nothing was taken: no jewelry, no money, nothing! I don’t think robbery was the motive. Someone was out to get Sam and got him.”

“But Sam had no enemies.”

“Except Buck Fine.”

At this point Dolly presented a halfhearted protest. “I don’t think Buck hated Sam, certainly not enough to kill him. I think he was jealous of Sam.”

There followed an awkward pause. Denver took it as an opportunity to tell Dolly to be brave and call on him if she needed anything. The combination of injunctions didn’t come out quite as he had intended them to, but she took his meaning. She responded with a tearful hug and kiss, telling him how considerate he was. He got away quickly and decided to speak with Buck or Patricia as soon as possible. They had to be warned.

Before he could reach either of them, Horn reached him. As he entered his home, the telephone was ringing. Horn wanted to know if it would be convenient if he came over. He had a few more questions to ask. Denver had no objection to further interrogation. In fact, he hoped to get a bit of information from the detective.

Once again Horn’s line of questioning took Denver by surprise. “You said that you had business dealings with Sam Tarn. Was he your broker?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Were you satisfied with his performance?”

“Very much so. Mine is a small account. I’m not one of his millionaire clients, but he increased the value of my portfolio by some very sound suggestions. Why do you ask?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. First, did he ever give you any hot tips?”

“He didn’t use that language, but a couple of times he recommended stocks that increased in price soon after I bought them. I don’t do much trading. Mostly I invest for the long haul. But on those two occasions, I bought when he said I should and sold when the price went up. There’s nothing unusual in that, is there? Isn’t that what stockbrokers are for?”

Horn gave him a pitying look and went on to his next question. “Were the stocks he recommended blue chip stocks like Du Pont and Merck or were they unknowns?”

“I had never heard of either of them, though one was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. I think the other was over the counter.”

Denver waited for the promised explanation. Horn gave it grudgingly. “We haven’t found a convincing motive for his murder in his personal life, so we are going into his professional relationships. He was remarkably successful, had over six million dollars in his personal account. So far, all of his clients have reported that he made money for them, too.”

“You don’t kill a man because he does you favors.”

“You wouldn’t think so, would you? By the way, the murderer kept the gun; at least, we haven’t found it.”

Denver didn’t like the sound of that in the least. After Horn had gone, Denver reached Patricia Fine and arranged to stop in that evening after supper.

As it turned out, he learned more during his visit to the Fines than they did. Buck was aware of the net of suspicion closing around him. He wasn’t worried by it. “Pat and I were at home all that night. Early in the evening we got a couple of phone calls. Our car was parked in the driveway all night, as our neighbors can certify. Even the police can’t imagine that I would sneak out of my home in the middle of the night and walk four miles to kill Sam Tarn. I didn’t hate him; I merely did not like having him always trying to take advantage of me. He was one of those mean people who get pleasure from doing damage to others under the appearance of bumbling joviality.

“He liked to go into people’s houses and spill things on their rugs, trip over lamp cords, drop gravy boats, sit down heavily on fragile chairs so that they would break and his host would have to apologize to him. He did all that while being the life of the party. Since his hosts were wealthy, they didn’t mind the cost and they enjoyed the frolicking. I saw no reason to let him expand his reputation as a good-time Charlie at my expense and I told him so.”

“Neither of you ever saw him at his worst,” Patricia added. “I’ve seen him put on his magic show for children. He’d start out by changing handkerchiefs into different colors. The kids love that. Then he’d do tricks with large steel rings, joining them together and taking them apart. By that time, he’d become everyone’s hero. He could do no wrong. So he’d follow that with coin tricks.

“That’s when he’d get children to come up on stage. He’d vanish coins and pull them out of a child’s ear — that sort of thing. If the children enjoyed being on stage, he’d do one or two feats, send them back, and call for others to come up. Eventually he’d find a child who got embarrassed being tricked in public. He’d keep that one on stage as his stooge. He’d vanish a coin and ask the child where it had gone. The other children would be shouting and calling to their friend to find it, but the poor kid on stage would be confused and humiliated. He’d keep that up for a while and then make the coin reappear in the child’s mouth. He’d accuse the child of stealing the coin. I’ve seen him keep it up until the poor victim, still trying to be a good sport before the rest of the audience, was on the verge of tears. That was Sam Tarn at his worst.”

“And,” said Buck, “I’ll bet everyone loved him for it.”

“I didn’t. And the poor child didn’t. But, yes, everyone else thought it was great fun.”

It was a side of Sam Tarn that Denver had never suspected, yet he had to admit that it fit. “Do you suppose that the parents of such a child might have hated him?”

“I doubt it,” Patricia replied. “There weren’t many parents who came to those shows. Mostly they were during school, a special treat for younger pupils. And I don’t think a child would be likely to tell parents about it, more likely to want to forget it as quickly as possible.”

Buck Fine cleared his throat and spoke slowly, as if thinking while talking. “Perhaps the whole notion of finding someone who hated Sam is on the wrong track. Maybe the police should be looking for someone Sam hated.”

“Anyone special in mind?” Denver asked.

“Actually, there was one man Sam couldn’t stand. It was Mulligan.”

“Marvin Mulligan, the lawyer?”

“The same.”

“But wouldn’t hatred be mutual?”

“No. That’s the whole point. Marvin never took Sam seriously enough to care what he thought. Marvin has a quick mind and a sharp tongue. When Sam would say something silly, Marv would top him with something truly witty. When Sam did imitations, Marv would add just a word or two and get all the laughs. When Sam would roll up his pants legs and walk around like a woman, Marv would say something that made Sam look like a fool rather than a jester. Sam hated him.”

“That’s a thought,” said Denver, “but it was Sam who was killed, not Marvin.”

On his way home, Denver thought over the new picture of Sam Tarn that had emerged in his talk with the Fines. He was surprised that he had never suspected that sort of thing. There was, however, nothing in it that he could not accept. It was consistent with the Sam Tarn he knew.

Equally revealing were the insights Denver found into his own part in the social drama. He had been like the children in Sam’s audience, ready to be amused as the performer played tricks on others. He had not seen behind the mask of good humor. Like others, he had enjoyed being deceived, had encouraged it.

Once home, he did not feel like going to bed. His mind was awake and meant to stay awake. Somewhere during the past two hours, he felt, he had hit on the solution to the problem of Sam Tarn’s murder. Now it eluded him.

Finally, he sat down at his desk and tried to work at his article on sixteenth-century humanism. He settled down to write on Aretino’s relationship with Clement VII. Instead, he found himself comparing Pietro Aretino, the most infamous writer of that century, with the murdered Sam Tarn. Aretino, shameless in his effusive flattery of Charles V and merciless in his slander of those who refused to pay for his support, had died of natural causes — quite natural in his case, since he died of apoplexy. Poor Sam Tarn had met the fate the poet Berni had prophesied for Aretino.

Which was worse: to be the “scourge of princes,” an absolute scoundrel with the world trembling in rage at your libels, or to be a mountebank hiding your spite and sadism behind a facade of hijinx with the world laughing at your antics? Sam Tarn had at least given some pleasure to the world. His mask was a comic mask. In embarrassing one child, he had made a hundred laugh. Was it worth the price? On the other hand, the barefaced viciousness of Aretino had no redeeming qualities at all.

Denver lost himself for an hour in the strife and invective of the sixteenth century, especially the works of Franco Sacchetti. When he finished his writing, he knew who had killed Sam Tarn.

The next morning he called Lieutenant Horn. The detective would be in that afternoon. Denver, who had two classes to teach that morning, was satisfied to meet with him at one o’clock.

Seated again in Horn’s office, Denver related his conversation with Buck and Patricia Fine and how he discovered the killer. “Buck was right,” he said. “We would never find anyone who hated Sam Tarn. But if no one hated him enough to kill him, what happened? Sam’s own character gave me the answer.”

Horn listened patiently. “I think you’re right,” he said at last. “I’ll get a search warrant at once.”

Later, Denver explained to Buck and Patricia, “The warrant would have got results but it proved unnecessary. He got a confession instead.”

“How did it happen?”

“As usual, Tarn and Dolly returned home in the small hours of the morning. Since Dolly had been reading about all the crime and violence going on, they were constantly on edge when coming in late. They had bought special alarms, safety locks for the windows, a device that would turn on lights if anything moved in certain areas, all that sort of thing. So Sam let Dolly out of the car as soon as the garage door opened with the electronic opener. She went to open the front door while he parked the car.

“He parked it quickly and put on a ski mask. As she stood putting the keys back in her bag, he jumped out of the bushes to scare her. She had a pistol in her handbag and shot him twice. Then she screamed and ran indoors to call the police. Still screaming, she went back to the front door to call for Sam. And she recognized him lying there.

“She pulled off the ski mask and then hid it and the gun in a drawer. The story she told the police followed what happened except that she invented the intruder and had him do the shooting. Horn found the gun and the ski mask right where she had put them. She hadn’t opened the drawer since she put them there. She couldn’t bear to look at them.”

“Was she arrested?”

“She was taken to the station to make a sworn statement. Then she was released. I don’t know how the law will look at what happened. I certainly wouldn’t charge her.”

“Poor Sam. He played one trick too many.”

“And he wore one mask too many.”

Cereal Killer

by Mike Curry

Detectiverse

For dispatching each lady friend, Miller

Does a “Corn Flakes Maneuver” to chill ’er—

Add a pinch (on the sly)

Of potassium cy.

He’s a serial cereal killer.

The Blue Bread of Happiness

by James Powell

As the adventures of Acting Sergeant Maynard Bullock enter their twenty-fifth year, the daring spirit of the bungling mountie is undiminished. To Bullock, who can find excitement guarding the flowerbeds in front of the Parliament Buildings, an encounter with the legendary Athanatos and his submarine The Sea Monoceros is all in a day’s work...

* * *

“Actually, it’s more slate grey than blue. And more like pound cake than bread,” explained the old woman, fingering the clasp of the purse that lay across her knees. “Pound cake’s leap to glory, some call it.” As she spoke, her sad brown eyes turned from the man in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Recreation Association windbreaker sitting across from her to wander over the ample, well-lit lobby of Ottawa’s National Archives Building. “I’m telling you this now so you won’t be surprised when you see it.”

Acting Sergeant Maynard Bullock ran a knuckle across his neatly trimmed moustache to mask any hint of a smile: “Thanks for being up front with me, Miss Bright.”

“Nor, as I said, does it give you happiness,” she insisted. “Unless you’re cockeyed enough to think being young means happiness. Oh yes, small amounts do reverse the aging process. And yes, when you reach your desired age regular maintenance doses will keep you there. That’s all we claim.” She touched her cheek. “I use the preparation myself.”

“I’d never have guessed you were over a hundred and fifty years old,” said Bullock.

“Thank you,” she said, lowering her eyes modestly. “But it is expensive. Which is how I got into the selling end.” She gave him a quick look. “That isn’t illegal, you know. Youth isn’t a controlled substance. At least, not yet.” She paused and said, “Well, shall we get down to business? Did you bring the money?”

Bullock produced the thick roll of bank notes with a forced casualness. He hadn’t been able to go to Mountie Bunco for marked bills, not after last year’s little snafu involving the Stoner ransom money and a howling snowstorm. (Blast all cheap locks on cheap suitcases everywhere! And blast the newspapers for reporting the story!) Fortunately good old Mavis, his wife, had come into a small inheritance, one earmarked for paying off the mortgage. This was the money Bullock now handed over, confident he’d get it back into their account before it was missed. Then, mustering his most gullible smile, he asked, “Run it by me again, Miss Bright. This twenty thousand gets me a half share in your upcoming purchase of the stuff with a street value of...?”

“...a hundred thousand dollars,” said Miss Bright, wearily. “You’ve got me in a bind. Dr. Athanatos only deals in fifty-thousand-dollar lots. All I’ve got is thirty.” She drew an envelope from her purse, and ran her thumb across the bills inside before adding Bullock’s money to them. “Some of my fixed-income customers have had to increase their doses. They say Athanatos is watering the stuff.” She sealed the envelope with her tongue and stuffed it back into her purse, adding, “Maybe he is. Anyway, I’ve had to extend them credit. What else could I do, considering the consequences? Oh, not just the heartburn. That’s only the first danger sign.” The woman looked at Bullock gravely. “Deprived of their usual dosage they’d start ageing faster and faster until they burst into flame. Poof, just like that. From the friction, you see.”

“Ah,” said Bullock.

Miss Bright nodded. “Spontaneous combustion. Dickens is full of the stuff, which means, I suppose, that Athanatos was around in those days, too.” Gathering up the paper shopping bag at her feet, Miss Bright rose. “I have to run,” she said, buttoning her green raincoat. She turned to go, then stopped. “Stupid me,” she said, taking the envelope from her purse again. “I forgot we agreed you’d hold the money as a token of good faith.”

Bullock took the envelope she offered him, making no sign he knew it only contained cut up paper.

“Until tomorrow morning at eight, then, at Fenians’ Bend,” said Miss Bright. “My niece Stella and I will be there. I know you’ll come. If a body can’t trust a Mountie who...?” Here Miss Bright frowned and tapped her chest with a most ladylike fist, as though experiencing discomfort. Then she hurried away.

Bullock watched her go solemnly. But inside he was agloat from ear to ear. He made no move until she reached the street. She mustn’t know she was being followed.

Outside, the morning was brisk and grey. He hung back as she hurried across the broad expanse of Wellington Street. When she turned southward, he stepped out after her. He’d spotted her as a con artist right off the bat when she’d approached him yesterday among the flowerbeds on Parliament Hill. He’d strung her along hoping she’d lead him to the sophisticated gang of Gypsy cons known to be working the old pigeon-drop scam in the area. It’d be a much-needed feather in his hat to nab the lot of them single-handed.

Still, Bullock had to admire the detail Miss Bright brought to her cock-and-bull story, even working in Dr. Athanatos, the legendary Canadian health-tonic manufacturer whose Peacock Island Brand Soup of Youth had made him millions. Bullock had first come across Athanatos in one of those wonderful turn-of-the-century adventure tales for boys featuring Canada’s aviation pioneer Buzz Haycock who, in a single Niagara afternoon, became the first man to fly over the Canadian Falls and go over the American Falls in an airplane. And none of those books had been more gripping than Buzz Haycock and the Behemoth Queen, recounting the daredevil pilot’s flight to the top of the world, drawn by rumors of a German staging area for an armada of stealthy isinglass dirigibles. Instead Haycock discovered a honeycomb of island caverns, the haunt of giant Ice Worms. And he encountered Athanatos and his futuristic submarine The Sea Monoceros, come to hunt the terrible translucent creatures with an electric harpoon rifle of his own invention. In spite of the man’s somewhat shady reputation, Haycock had come to enjoy those dinners in the craft’s glass-walled conning tower while the violent Arctic weather swirled outside and his host’s slavish crew doubled as a baroque music ensemble. However far those discussions over brandy and cigars ranged, they always returned to the age-old question: does happiness make men good or does goodness make them happy. (By godfrey, thought Bullock, they don’t write books for boys like that anymore.)

Up ahead, Bullock saw Miss Bright turn into a drugstore. He followed after her, humming casually, and locating her head above the display counters in the far corner, he drifted toward the humorous greeting cards, meaning to wait for her over a chuckle or two. But he’d scarcely begun to browse when there was a flash of light from Miss Bright’s direction. Bullock looked up to find a few wisps of smoke where her head had been. Bullock shouldered his way through the customers stampeding for the door and reached her aisle. It was empty. But on the floor in front of the antacid section he found a small cone of smoking ashes and the charred remains of a green raincoat. He poked through the ashes with his pencil, uncovering part of a brown shopping-bag handle and what looked like the metal clasp of Miss Bright’s purse. Bullock scratched his head. Then he shook it. No, by godfrey, he couldn’t buy spontaneous combustion. It was a trick to throw him off her track. Bullock ran out onto the street. But Miss Bright was long gone. With good old Mavis’s money. Bullock took out the envelope and ripped it open, meaning to curse the worthless contents. But the envelope was filled with bank notes, his twenty thousand and Miss Bright’s thirty! He blinked and rushed back to the pile of smoking ashes. Good godfrey, was this really the poor woman’s earthly remains? Had she really been as old as she’d said? Did the Blue Bread of Happiness really work?

By identifying himself, Bullock got the worried young woman at the register to give him a broom, dust pan, and a large paper bag. Then he swept what was left of Miss Bright into the bag. Any official report he made on this right now would get him laughed off the force. He was lucky there was a technician at Forensics who owed him a favor.

When he left Forensics, Bullock continued on out of town to the Mountie retirement home. Horseman’s End stood in a quiet pine forest, a collection of peeled log buildings on whose broad verandas, snow or shine, the old-timers rocked, argued loudly, and swapped exaggerations about the bygone days. Bullock parked and hurried inside the community house. From the first-floor auditorium the bingo caller announced a number and, immediately, a quavering voice that once might have cowed a whole camp of rioting miners shouted the name of the game. Shaking his head, Bullock took the stairs up to the library.

Sergeant Wesley Noonan, called the Sage of Horseman’s End, had spent twenty-five years at Cape Despondency, the most godforsaken outpost in Mountie jurisdiction, with nothing between himself and stark madness but an old ten-volume encyclopedia in the bookcase by the wood stove. He had read the set from cover to cover many times before reaching retirement. He returned home so happy to fill in the gaps in his relatives’ knowledge of the days before television that they were soon wondering out loud during the commercial breaks if he might not be more at home at Horseman’s End.

Bullock found Noonan, spare and pale, clear-eyed, beard like driven snow, sitting at the library checkout desk with stamp and stamp pad at the ready, his back to one of those roll-down oilcloth maps of the world Bullock remembered from grade school, with the British Empire in red and assorted Neilson’s chocolate bars floating like flat tops in the corner seas.

“Spontaneous combustion,” said Bullock.

Noonan’s eyelids dipped. He raised the ball of his thumb to his lips and used it to page the air. When he stopped, his lips began to move as though reading. After a moment, he looked at Bullock. “Dickens speaks of it, of course,” he said. “Dombey and Son. His English contemporaries claimed it came from overeating Tansy Brand Potted Prunes Jubilee. But the Continent believed fat people got it by drinking brandy near open fires. Leibig thought otherwise, and with him I once again concur.” Noonan fingered his beard as wise men do. “It so happened that the phenomenon figured in my last case here in Ottawa before my Cape Despondency assignment. Yes, sir, people were disappearing in droves that winter. Nothing left but smoking galoshes in the snow. Some said ‘polar bears,’ recalling those rumors the Tories spread during the winter by-election in eighteen ninety to keep the voters away from the polls. But that didn’t explain the smoke. I saw at once that we were dealing with the old fire-insurance scam. Yes, believe it or not, back in those days you could still find insurance companies offering double indemnity for spontaneous combustion. All a man had to do was take out a policy on himself naming a phony beneficiary. Then he torches his galoshes, slaps on a wig, and waltzes down to the insurance company to claim double indemnity.

“I was writing my report when a Professor Biggins showed up in a loud green-and-purple tie, claiming people were bursting into flame as an aftereffect of eating Dr. Athanatos’s Loaf of Longevity. Athanatos the Eternal as he was known locally.”

Bullock’s ears perked up. It was the second reference to Athanatos today. But it seemed impossible it could be the same man. Athanatos had perished in the Arctic when the giant Queen of the Ice Worms, enraged by the slaughter of her young, had burst from beneath the waves to catch The Sea Monoceros in her terrible coils and, with the submarine’s hull creaking like a boot in agony, had plunged back into the icy depths, leaving an astonished Buzz Haycock suddenly alone beside the Arctic Sea. But that had been at the turn of the century. Bullock asked, “What are we talking, time-frame-wise?”

“The smoking galoshes were nineteen forty-six,” replied Noonan. He waited for a moment to see if Bullock was going to interrupt him again. Then he continued his story. “This Biggins guy claimed turtle glands could slow the rush toward old age that triggers the spontaneous combustion. But he said Athanatos had found out about his research and was threatening him. Well, I explained about the insurance scam and I sent the good professor on his way. But just to be on the safe side, I gave Athanatos the once-over. Well sure, his neighbors told of a small face at the attic windows and lights up there till all hours. But you always get stories like that. As I said in my report, the guy was a legitimate health-food manufacturer. The next thing I knew I was transferred to Cape Despondency.

“But the day I left to go up north I thought I saw Professor Biggins’s purple and green tie walking down the street around the neck of a guy with a full head of hair who was the spitting image of Biggins, only looking twenty-five years younger.”

“You mean?”

Noonan nodded. “He’d gone and done the old fire-insurance scam. I blame myself for putting him onto it.”

Bullock thought for a moment. Athanatos made the Blue Bread of Happiness, the Loaf of Longevity, and Peacock Island Brand Soup of Youth. But what about the Potted Prunes Jubilee? “Who’s this guy Tansy?” he asked.

“It’s an herb,” said Noonan, the ball of his thumb paging again. “Tansy,” he read. “The name comes from the Greek word...” He stopped and looked at Bullock. “...the Greek word Athanasia meaning ‘immortal.’ ”

From the bingo game beneath them they heard another old voice claim tame victory.

Bullock left Horseman’s End in a puzzle. Would Miss Bright set up so elaborate a deception just for a fire-insurance policy? And why leave behind the envelope with the money? But the situation clarified when he arrived back at headquarters and found a note on his locker door. It said: “Maynard, Sally at the desk said Carl from Forensics called. The ashes belong to a human female. One hundred and sixty years old. Did I get that right? Leo.” I’ll say you did, Leo, thought Bullock. By godfrey, there was no doubt about it now. The Blue Bread of Happiness worked!

Fenians’ Bend, another of those odd turnings of the Rideau Canal that have earned Ottawa the nickname The Venice of the Pre-Cambrian Shield, was the site of the last of the Fenian Raids, when Irish veterans of the American Civil War tried to conquer Canada, meaning to trade it back to the British for their beloved Emerald Isle. In the winter of 1880 they launched a surprise attack on Ottawa itself. But Canadian intelligence had an informer in their midst. (In the movie he was played by Barry Fitzgerald.) Bullock could never visit the place without hearing Victor Kornflower’s thundering score for the famous battle on the ice or seeing, in his mind’s eye, the rank on rank of Fenians all canted forward into the wind, skating up the middle of the frozen canal, dragging an arsenal of Gatling guns and small field pieces mounted on bobsleds behind them. There among the trees the local Canadian militia, though desperately few in number, waited with drawn sabers and muffled harness, ready, as a poet of the day put it, “to smite the sledded Fenians on the ice.” They were under the command of C. Aubrey Smith with snow in his mighty eyebrows and a worried face. Where, you could see him wonder, were the French Canadian reinforcements, the veteran zouaves du pape? Was their delay misadventure or deliberate betrayal?

The only sounds were the hum of the falling snow and the whisk-whisk of the invaders’ skates. Here where the canal bent eastward exposing the attackers’ left flank the cavalry struck. Saber thrusts, gunshots, Canadian battle cries, Irish tenor oaths, cracking ice, and neighing horses filled the moonlit night. Just as the militia began to give way, Charles Boyer’s zouaves, delayed by Ontario’s English signposts, galloped up to turn the tide.

Bullock came out of the trees in full uniform and crossed the morning grass to the jogging path that bordered the canal. A thick, unseasonable fog lay across the water where a small, purposeful group of middle-aged people waited, men of the failed salesmen persuasion, suits worn but pressed, shoes buffed but down-at-the-heels, women with the harried air of Tupperware-party organizers. Athanatos’s preparation certainly hadn’t enriched them. Standing off from the group was a smartly dressed young woman whose skin seemed to glow from youth and the weather. When she smiled at him, he knew he’d found Miss Bright’s niece Stella.

When Bullock told her the bad news about her aunt, sudden tears stood in her large blue eyes. While she recovered herself, they paced together along the edge of the canal. “I blame Athanatos for this,” said Stella. “And for all the misery he’s causing, poultry virus or not.”

“Say again?”

“Peacocks,” she answered. “It’s all in the promotional literature. Athanatos’s formula is mostly peacock giblet broth, okay? Thousands of years ago, this Tarshishman with a cargo of apes, peacocks, and ivory-handled mirrors shipwrecked in the Mediterranean. The crew perished. The apes escaped on a raft and reached Gibraltar. As for the peacocks, when Athanatos found them they’d been strutting around this island for generations, admiring themselves in the mirrors and multiplying. Boil them down and you get a broth so thick with vanity that one sip makes your flesh get too damn proud to age. But now they say a virus has decimated the flock and Athanatos is watering the stuff. So people like Aunt Sybil are going ‘poof all over the place.”

“But what about turtle glands?” said Bullock.

Stella shook her head. “Turtle glands slow things down, all right. You kind of smolder to death over a week. No, Aunt Sybil was right. What we need is a Mountie to scare the hell out of Athanatos.”

Bullock said nothing. He was there for a different, a higher purpose. Buzz Haycock always drew a moral in his books. As the flying daredevil watched the bubbling oil slick on the Arctic water, the final grave of The Sea Monoceros, he had, as he often did, addressed his young readers directly. “Chaps,” he had observed, “who knows but that behind Dr. Athanatos’s cynical mask of merciless greed and lust for absolute power over his fellow men there lurked a spark of decency and fair play which someone, had he but found the right words; might have fanned into a flame of passionate humanity.” It was Bullock’s earnest dream to be that man and find those words.

“Strange, that localized fog,” he said.

“Aunt Sybil and the others have a saying that The Sea Monoceros brings its own fog.”

Bullock gave her a melancholy smile and started to tell her about the tragic end of The Sea Monoceros, when it occurred to him that if Athanatos had escaped the Ice Worm Queen, why not his submarine?

“Did you bring the money?” asked Stella as the sound of oarlocks came to them across the water.

“Hold on there,” protested Bullock. “You don’t mean you’re still going to make the buy.”

“I promised to take care of Aunt Sybil’s clients if anything ever happened to her. Somebody has to.”

Bullock had forgotten about all those old men and women faced with imminent death by spontaneous combustion. Still, it was hard to give up the money a second time.

“Don’t worry,” said Stella. “I know about your deal with my aunt. You’ll more than double your money by noon.”

Bullock handed over the envelope, explaining that profit was the farthest thing from his mind. But just then a ship’s longboat emerged from the fog. The middle-aged, balding, and paunchy crew wore crisp white uniforms and red pompoms on their caps. Shipping oars, they jumped ashore as smartly as old bones would allow and set up a folding table and chair. A sailor with a stripe on his sleeve sat down behind a large strongbox, flanked by mates whose palsied old hands caressed modern automatic weapons. The crowd knew the drill and lined up in front of him. He counted their money, placed it in the strongbox, and gave them small packages done up in brown paper and string.

The last in line, Stella handed over the envelope with good old Mavis’s nest egg in it and received her portion of the Blue Bread of Happiness. Then the armed sailors hoisted the strongbox and headed back to the boat.

“I want to see Athanatos,” Bullock told the man with the stripe.

The sailor eyed him up and down. “The doctor doesn’t see people,” he said.

“He sees Mounties,” growled Bullock, in his best cut-the-guff manner. The sailor chewed on his lip. Unslinging a walkie-talkie, he whispered into it, listening for a moment, and gestured Bullock into the boat.

Since there was no place for him to sit, Bullock stood in the bow. As they pushed off he gave Stella a reassuring wave then turned forward and struck a pose, imagining one more diorama in the Mountie Hall of Fame’s Memorable-Moments-in-the-Early-Career-of-Commissioner-Maynard-Bullock series: “Bullock Enters the Mysterious Fog Bank Where Lurks The Sea Monoceros.” By godfrey, he thought, adventure hones the senses. He was alive again, tasting the chill morning air, feeling the curl of fog against his cheek, sensing a presence at his back, smelling the chloroform. Chloro...?

Bullock came to with a gag in his mouth and two sailors strapping him onto a gurney. He knew at once that this cramped little room with concave metal walls was the belly of The Sea Monoceros! And the craft was under way. Now the sailor with the stripe came into view, pushing a wheeled table bearing a large hypodermic. The man wore the crooked smile of a waiter delivering a cart of suspect pastries.

Suddenly all three sailors snapped to attention. Bullock lifted his head as a slightly built seventeen- or eighteen-year-old in an ill-fitting navy uniform and a hat thick with gold braid stepped in through the open bulkhead. Bullock heard whimpers of desire from the crewmen when they saw the vial of bright blue liquid he carried. Setting the vial alongside the hypodermic, the young man rubbed his palms until they squeaked. “A real Mountie at last!” he said triumphantly. “Soon I, Dr. Athanatos, will rule Canada. Then it will be the world. After that, it’s the solar system and...” He looked up at the ceiling. The three sailors followed his eyes. “...space, the final frontier.”

Bullock roared muffled defiance into his gag, shouting not just on behalf of Canada but for the very universe. Amused, Athanatos filled the hypodermic from the vial and said, “Hey, you were expecting an old geezer, right? Undiluted, my formula’s real gangbusters. I went a little overboard last dose.” He offered himself for inspection. “What do you think? Want to be twenty-five years younger?” He paused before adding, “Knowing what you know now.”

By godfrey, knowing what I know now? thought Bullock.

“Sure,” said Athanatos, clairvoyantly, “I’m talking a second crack at life over a course you’d run before. You’d know when to zig and when to zag. You’d be RCMP Commissioner in no time. My commissioner.” Athanatos poised the hypodermic for the thrust. “Yes, one shot in the pituitary and you’re my slave. Without the maintenance doses, you go ‘Poof!’ ” Smiling, Athanatos leaned forward. Bullock gritted his teeth. But the man pulled back playfully, promising, “Oh, it won’t hurt. Just a jab and a troubled kind of sleep, a dreamy rush back over years of failure and humiliation. But backwards or not, they’ll still hurt like hell. That’s why the gag. Who wants to listen to a big stoop moaning and groaning in his sleep, right?”

Athanatos raised the needle again. The three sailors leaned forward. But a sudden, jarring klaxon sounded from a wall speaker. “Prepare to dive! Prepare to dive!” it crackled.

“To your stations,” commanded Athanatos. The sailors rushed from the compartment. As the bulkhead door slammed shut, the young man’s stem mask collapsed. Exhaling deeply, he rested his elbow on Bullock’s chest and smiled. “Boy, that was close. I couldn’t stall much longer.” Undoing Bullock’s gag, he added, “Hell, I don’t even know where the pituitary gland is.”

“I’ll never tell,” said Bullock, eyeing the needle warily. “Now what the hell’s going on around here?”

“I’m Billy Athanatos,” said the young man. “Doc was my dad. Spontaneous combustion got him.”

“Dive! Dive! Dive!” commanded the loudspeaker. Bullock felt his body slide forward on the gurney as the submarine made its descent. When the craft had leveled out again Billy said, “First he started buying turtle soup by the case. Next thing I knew, he was reeking of smoke. So I said, ‘Hey, Dad, I hope you’re not back on cigarettes?’ Well, he swore he wasn’t and I believed him. But a couple of days ago I was vacuuming the living room— Did I tell you I had to take over the housework when Dad fired our last housekeeper for snooping around? Dad had a thing about snoops. He was always hiding behind the living-room drapes trying to catch them. Anyway, there were the tips of his shoes sticking out from under the drapes. ‘Lift ’em, Dad,’ I said when I got to where he was standing. But he wasn’t there, just these shoes, the pair he always said pinched so much, and the smell of smoke.”

“Spontaneous combustion,” said Bullock.

Billy nodded. “I buried the vacuum bag in the yard and here I am, Athanatos the Eternal the Second. You see, nobody even knew I existed. Dad kept me in the attic like I was a spare or something. I sure watched a lot of television.” He gave Bullock a respectful look. “Hearts of Scarlet is my favorite show,” he said, naming the popular dramatization of Mountie exploits which was Bullock’s favorite, too. “Well,” continued Billy, “I’m sure taking over at a bad time. The formula’s finally run out. That was ink in the hypodermic. And in the pound cake, too.”

“You can’t just whip up another batch?”

“The formula went down with The Sea Monoceros in the Arctic years ago. That’s why I need you. Dad made a deal with Lady Chin-Chin who owns Cathay Salvage to raise it. With what we collected today I’ve got the five million up-front money she demanded. She’s on site waiting for it right now, barges, diving bell, and all.”

As Bullock wondered whether Lady Chin-Chin got her name because she was convivial or because she was overweight, something occurred to him. Gesturing around with his chin he asked, “If The Sea Monoceros sank, what’s this?”

“A plywood mock-up,” laughed Billy. “Dad built it here inside his RV to intimidate his friends in high places when he got them here for a little pituitary work. That dive back there was part of the drill. It’s where the road goes under the railway tracks.” As if on cue, The Sea Monoceros made a sharp turn and came to a stop. “We’re home,” he said. “Quick, pretend you’re asleep. And moan a bit. The crew could turn mean if they learn the formula’s run out. Dad promised them twenty-five years’ worth for serving him for ten. That ten years runs out at midnight.”

“Now take the fog-making machine back to the rental place,” ordered Billy as the sailors set Bullock and the gurney down on the cellar floor. “We’ll meet back here tonight for your payoff.” The crew pounded back up the steps to the outside.

“We’d better get these straps off me,” ordered Bullock.

Billy pulled the string on an overhead bulb, sending a ball of light bouncing around the cellar. “First the grand tour,” he said, reaching down to release a lock so he could turn the top of the gurney any way he wished. “Here’s where Dad tried to reconstruct the formula.” He pointed Bullock toward the workbench with its flasks, coils, and test tubes. “The peacock broth was easy. It was the seventeen rare herbs and spices he never got right again.”

Billy turned the gurney again. “And over there in the corner’s the old coal bin. Listen. Hear that noise? We’ve got rats. But more about them later. Notice the thick stone walls. You could scream your lungs out and never be heard.” The effect of Billy’s evil laughter was weakened somewhat when his voice broke and trailed off reedily. “Hey,” he shouted, spinning the gurney hard, “great idea for a Canadian game show. Spin the Mountie.”

Bullock closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Was that it? Did Billy mean to transport him like this to some tundra outpost and use him as a rallying point for Northern malcontents, Anglophone and Francophone extremists, members of the dreaded Front Populate Sociopathique, hopheads from United Empire Loyalist assassin squads? Was he to be some hellish Wheel of Fortune with a beautiful Indian maiden in lavish wampum posting letters of the alphabet up on a board until they spelled out slogans like “Don’t Trust Anyone Below the Tree Line” guaranteed to send the crowd off on some holy war, a jihad against civilized Canada?

When the gurney stopped spinning, Bullock opened his eyes again. Billy was up on a chair, taking bundles of bank notes from a hiding place among the rafters and stuffing them into a duffel bag.

“I’ll give it to you straight,” he said. “Lady Chin-Chin’s people scare the hell out of me. Dad had them over to the house once with me watching through the banister up to the second floor. Talk about your tough customers. We had your refugees from the slums of Glasgow, your China Sea mutineers, even a father-son team of renegade Inuits exiled from their people for cannibal leanings. That crew did a real job on the beer and pizza, let me tell you.

“Hey, sure, I’ve got Dad’s evil laugh down pretty good. But sometimes, like you just heard, my voice goes squeaky on me. Try facing down a slew of China Sea mutineers with a laugh like that. But a Mountie could ramrod the whole outfit real easy. We’ll do thirdsies on the profits from the formula, you, me, and Lady Chin-Chin. My Dad’s thing was a big power trip. When he said jump, he wanted the whole world to jump. Me? Hey, I’m just a kid. All I want is whatever I want, whenever I want it. A thirdsy’s plenty for me.” Billy jumped down from the chair. “Is it a deal?”

“What if I say no?” asked Bullock.

“Then you get left down here with a brick of sharp cheddar up your tunic and rats for playmates. Like I said, scream all you want. As for Billy Athanatos, he’ll just take this five million and walk. Maybe he’ll take a world cruise on The Love Boat.”

For just a moment Bullock imagined himself a renegade Mountie whipping the salvage crew into shape with his bare fists, master of the ice-caked deck of the salvage barge, the brim of his Stetson warped every which way and his tunic in tatters, his chest bare to the arctic air as he traded curse for curse, blow for blow, with a dozen China Sea pirates, while the young Inuit cannibal chewed on his left biceps, the oldster tried to gum his ear off, and Lady Chin-Chin — the convivial one — toasted him with champagne through her stateroom porthole.

Afterwards, to make amends, he’d use his thirdsy to reward do-gooders. “Dear Mr. Jones, I read in the Banff Bugle of your recent rescue of a child from a burning building. Enclosed find some Blue Bread of Happiness. Enjoy. Keep up the good work. There’s plenty more where that came from. Yours truly, a Secret Benefactor.”

“Well, what’s it going to be?” demanded Billy. “Dad keeps a seaplane in a secret hangar across the river in Hull. Say the word and we’re on our way.”

Suddenly, out of the coal-bin darkness, an old woman’s voice said, “Hands up and back against the wall, Billy. Or I’ll blow a hole in you big enough for Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians to march through, flags flying.”

Billy raised his hands and peered into the darkness. “It’s Miss Bright, our old housekeeper,” he whispered. Bullock lifted his astonished head, for he had recognized her voice, too.

But it was Stella who stepped out of the coal bin with a silver revolver in her fist. Smiling at their confusion, she said, “Sybil Bright was all smoke and mirrors. And makeup, tinted contact lenses, and a major in dramatic arts. But she got me the housekeeper’s job and a chance to hunt for the money. Though I never found anything except the fact that Billy here was living in the attic. Until now, that is. Thanks to you, Bullock.”

“But the ashes,” protested Bullock.

“My gluttonous great-grandmother who, the story goes, died of overeating something called Prunes Jubilee. Her urn sat on the mantel there for years.”

Blast, thought Bullock, imagining how a woman’s hundred-and-fifty-year-old ashes had been garbled into the ashes of a hundred-and-fifty-year-old woman as the message trudged from Forensics to headquarters to his locker door.

“I figured spontaneous combustion might hold your interest in case the Blue Bread of Happiness scam didn’t,” said Stella with a smile.

“Hey, the stuff’s no scam,” shouted Billy. “And spontaneous combustion’s no joke. It killed Dad.”

“Dream on, kid,” said Stella. “One night I sneaked back here to make another try for the money and found your dad behind the drapes. He came out in his stocking feet, smoking like a chimney. When I threatened to kill him unless he gave me the money, he coughed and reached out, you know, like he was trying to take the gun out of my hand. I hate it when men do that. Okay, maybe he was only going for an ashtray. Anyway, I buried him in the yard. Afterwards I decided Billy here would spook easy and go for the stash if I brought in a Mountie. Like the one I read about who loses ransoms in snowstorms.” She wagged the pistol. “And speaking of stash, hand it over.”

Billy tossed the duffel bag at Stella’s feet. But when she reached down he spun the gurney. It struck her arm. The pistol popped up into the air, dropped down onto Bullock’s chest, and slid toward the floor. Although his wrists were strapped to his sides, Bullock made a lucky grab and hooked the weapon in his astonished fingers. Suddenly he heard glass break and, as Stella lunged for the weapon, he felt a shard of glass against his jugular.

“Stop or he’ll shoot,” ordered Billy, adjusting the gurney to keep Stella in the line of fire.

Stella stopped. “A Mountie’d never shoot a defenseless woman,” she said, halfheartedly.

“A Mountie better,” said Billy, pressing down on the glass.

“Steady on here,” ordered Bullock with gruff authority.

But Stella ripped the gurney out of Billy’s one-handed grasp and spun it. Now he was the one looking down the business end of the pistol. When Billy started forward, Stella grabbed her shoe and tapped Bullock on the temple with the heel. “Stop,” she ordered. “Or he’ll shoot you down like the filthy little teenager you are.” Now they were deadlocked in a struggle for the gurney, grunting and puffing with effort.

“You’d better both come along quietly,” suggested Bullock.

“The Blue Bread of Happiness works,” insisted Billy through gritted teeth.

“Get real, kid,” said Stella. “My mother peddled the stuff for years. She knew what was going on. You’re from a long line of con men, going all the way back to Sieur Athanate de la Perpétuite, who came over with Champlain in sixteen-oh-eight. The family always kept a kid in the attic. It’d be bad for business for Athanatos the Eternal to die.”

Stella butted the stunned young man with the gurney, knocking him to the floor. Then she hopped around to maneuver Bullock into place. Tap, tap went the heel against his temple. “Stay down there or he’ll shoot,” she warned.

“Can’t shoot what you can’t see,” said Billy, jumping up with a small fire extinguisher he’d found under the workbench. The foam hit Bullock full in the face and blinded him. Stella, her forearm across Bullock’s chest, tried to keep control of the gurney, while with her free hand she scooped the foam out of his eyes.

“Dad said we never die,” panted Billy. “Every so often we just retire to Peacock Island and the next generation takes over.”

“Dream on,” said Stella, clearing the last of the foam from Bullock’s eyes.

“Yeah?” answered Billy loudly. “Yeah? Did you actually see a cigarette in Dad’s hand?”

Stella stopped. “Come to think of it, I didn’t,” she admitted. “He was kind of smoldering all over like he’d stuffed cigarettes in his pockets.”

“As for spontaneous combustion,” said Bullock, trying to get control of the situation, “I find that I concur with Leibig on the matter.”

Suddenly Billy changed tactics, jumped up on the gurney and clambered wildly toward the service revolver in Bullock’s holster. But when he drew it out, Stella grabbed the lanyard that was attached to the gun butt and yanked hard. The weapon flew from his hand, slammed against the wall, and discharged, striking a laboratory propane tank. The explosion hurled the gurney against the far wall.

Bullock regained consciousness in a cellar aflame. The force of the explosion had torn him free from all the straps except the one on his left ankle. Stella lay nearby against the wall, the back of her head wet with blood. Bullock couldn’t find a pulse. He crawled toward the stairs to the outside, dragging the gurney. On the way he found Billy Athanatos crying with pain and trying to save money from the burning duffel bag. Half pulling, half shoving, Bullock got the protesting young man up the stairs, the gurney bumping along behind him.

Billy sat on the curb with his seared hands between his knees, sobbing. Bullock glumly worked to undo the strap binding him to the gurney, wondering if it wouldn’t be better, when he was done, to walk right back into the fire and burn up like good old Mavis’s nest egg. Maybe the “Killed-in-the-Line-of-Duty” pension would make up for things. Bullock looked at the flames and sighed. Around him the neighbors were starting to gather. In the distance he heard a fire engine.

“Boy,” said Billy through his tears, “talk about rotten luck. No formula. No five million. No house. What have I got?” With tender hands he reached inside his coat, pulled out a wad of money, and counted. “A measly sixty seventy thou.”

Bullock grabbed the money. “Threatening a Mountie with cheese and rats is a federal offense, Billy,” he said, as he counted out twenty thousand dollars. “But I’m going to let that pass.” He handed back the rest of the money. “Got to go, Billy,” he said. “If I wait around, they’ll put me on traffic control. Tell them about Stella and everything. Tell them they can get in touch with me at headquarters. I’ve got to get to the bank before it closes.” He stood up and walked away.

“You’re not off the hook, you know,” shouted Billy. “When I don’t show up with the five million, Lady Chin-Chin will start diving on her own. She’ll find the formula and she and that crew of hers will rule the world.”

Sure, sure, Billy, said Bullock to himself, rubbing his ear thoughtfully. By godfrey, maybe it was his responsibility to go up to the Arctic after them. On the other hand, if the Blue Bread of Happiness worked and The Sea Monoceros really existed, then the giant Ice Worms existed, too. Why not just leave Lady Chin-Chin and the salvage crew to the terrible mercies of the Ice Worm Queen?

Pre-Mortem

by Dixie J. Whitted

Detectiverse

The coroner sharpened his knife

And sighed as he honed it, “That’s life.

We just never know

When it’s our time to go...”

And called, “Come in, dear,—” to his wife...

Gemini

by Gerald Pearce

Gerald Pearce was born in England and raised in the Middle East. At the age of ten, he discovered mystery fiction, including EQMM, which was then available on the newsstands in Baghdad, and started to write his own stories. After attending college in the United States, he wound up in Hollywood where he wrote teleplays for The Wonderful World of Disney and many distinguished science fiction and fantasy stories. His first novel-length mystery was published by Walker Books in 1990. He joins us now with an engrossing tale involving a question of identity...

1

Old Mac was dead, and only Tom Bell grieved enough to wear old jeans and a yellow turtleneck to the funeral.

The one other break in the solemnity was provided by Mac’s granddaughter Katherine, who was sleekly elegant in a beige dress, no jewelry, a white lace mantilla over her pale thick hair. Tom Bell imagined sharp no-color eyes watching her out of gray faces. So right for a girl not yet nineteen. Black would have been... ostentatious. He also imagined those eyes on the heavy-framed black sunglasses Katherine had worn even in the church. Been crying her eyes out. Poor kid. Actually she’d worn them at her father’s insistence to hide not grief but indifference.

The cluster of people who had sat through the service in the church Mac had never attended now gathered at his graveside. Middle-aged or older, gray-faced, soberly dressed, faces congealed into masks of corporate gravity, they were there, Tom thought, to say goodbye to a pioneer of times past and to fix him firmly in a niche to match their needs, from which he could no longer bother them.

Mac had deserved better.

Even after it was over, it wasn’t over.

People clustered at the cars. Strangers murmured condolences and goodbyes. Someone vaguely familiar pumped Tom’s hand, asked if he were out of law school yet, and reminded him sternly what a good friend he’d lost. Everyone muttered banalities, until finally, miraculously, the last of the gray people trickled away, leaving the four of them alone by the Chrysler Imperial in the gentle early November afternoon: Tom, Katherine, her father Charles McCauley, and his friend and the family lawyer, Alan Scherer.

Katherine snatched off the dark glasses. Her eyes were sky-blue, angry.

“Thank God that farce is over.”

She wrenched open the passenger’s front door and climbed in. Charles got in the driver’s side. He was an unathletic man in his late forties, with thinning hair and blunt features and wide flat lips that gave the lower half of his face an anvil look that was harder to read than a clock without hands.

Alan Scherer and Tom climbed into the back. Charles started the car and swung it into the sweeping curve that led out of the cemetery and into the afternoon traffic. He had refused to ride in a chauffeured limo and had given his own driver the afternoon off to avoid more dutiful gloom.

Tom said, “Who were all those people?”

“Members of the board and their wives,” Charles said. “A few members of other boards, paying their respects to the McCauley name.”

“He had friends, you know.”

“The old-timers are either gone or too far away.”

“Present-day friends,” Tom insisted.

“We didn’t need a crowd of beach riffraff.”

“Katherine’s right. It was a farce.”

“Not for your reasons,” Katherine snapped.

“We should have had a wake. With rock music and Mozart and young people. We should have celebrated his life. Instead we ignored it.”

“He didn’t think his life was worth celebrating. He killed himself.”

“You read the note.”

Charles said sharply, “That’ll do.”

He talked the way he moved, without haste or wasted energy. It gave him the inexorable quality of a glacier. He could put iron into a casual remark.

“About the note,” he went on. “What note? There wasn’t one, and we don’t want anyone suggesting that there was. As to the rest, we can’t run our lives on feelings. None of us can. End of discussion.”

Tom found himself saying, “Yes, sir,” automatically, lapping over Katherine’s resigned, “Yes, father.”

“Tom, I want to talk to you when we get home.”

Tom almost said, “Yes, sir,” again but caught himself.

“Okay.”

2

Number 1622 Lindero Lane had a flat half-oval driveway enclosing a manicured lawn with a couple of jacaranda trees growing out of it. The house was of dark red brick with a pine-green composition roof and looked comfortable but forbidding, protecting an almost fanatic privacy. A Gothic arch led onto a little porch. The front door looked capable of withstanding siege.

Things had been simpler, Tom thought, when he was just the gardener’s son who came two times a week to help out, trimming borders and weeding flowerbeds and raking lawns and hauling sacks of garden litter. Now, more than twelve years later, a lean slatty young man with shaggy dark hair and watchful eyes, Tom Bell followed the others onto the porch, wondering about the future without Mac. He owed the McCauleys a lot; the Stanford law degree was only part of it.

The front door opened before they reached it. Felipe, the houseboy, stood back and bowed gravely.

“Oh, cheer up, Felipe,” Katherine said nastily.

“Tais-toi,” Charles snapped as they went inside. He began giving Felipe orders. Katherine stopped in front of the hall mirror to remove her lace mantilla.

“I’m going riding,” she said to no one in particular.

Charles and Alan Scherer crossed the hall to the library. Tom took the carpeted stairs to the second floor, where he had had a room since he was fourteen.

It was the first room of his own he’d ever had, small, with a bed, a window, a closet, some cheap bookcases he’d added over the years. It had never felt like home — Charles and Katherine had seen to that — but it had been his sanctuary. Gratitude to Mac continued as gratitude to the room.

He changed his yellow turtleneck for a clean gray one, pulled on a light sweater against the approaching cool of the autumn evening. Better go see what Charles wanted to talk to him about.

He met Katherine as she reached the top of the stairs. She gave him a withering look.

“What made you bring up that note?”

“Why’d you bring up the suicide?”

“I despise quitters.”

“Hell, you just didn’t like your grandfather.”

“That’s right.” She pushed past him. In the hall the front door chime sounded. “Better get that. Felipe’s in the kitchen fixing Alan something to eat and Father’s given everyone else the day off.”

Katherine’s room was across the hall. She disappeared inside it.

In a swamp of irritation, Tom thudded down the stairs. His shoes made a more satisfactory impact when he hit the hardwood floor of the hall. He saw Felipe emerging from the direction of the kitchen with a tray and waved for him to ignore the front door. Felipe thanked him, knocked, and went into the library.

Tom grabbed impatiently at the front door handle, thumbed the latch, pulled the door open, and stared, suddenly disoriented.

Looking up at him nervously, with the Gothic arch behind her framing the two jacarandas, was a young woman holding a torn-open business-size envelope. She was speaking but he didn’t hear a word. Involuntarily, he looked back toward the stairs, then back at the girl at the door.

Same eyes, same mouth, same coloring. The blond hair was longer, more casual, her face more carelessly tanned, with a sprinkling of impish light freckles across the nose. The only real difference was money. This girl was strictly counterculture in a cotton blouse, a denim maxiskirt, worn thong sandals. Katherine had just disappeared into her upstairs bedroom and hadn’t had time to change her clothes and makeup.

So there had to be two of them.

The one outside was Katherine’s double.

He floundered.

“Uh? Beg pardon?”

“Does Mr. Charles McCauley live here?”

“Yeah. Yes. He does.”

She stuck two fingers into the torn end of the envelope and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. She unfolded it and offered it to him. Her hands were not pampered.

He took the paper. It was a typed letter addressed to Ms. Shannon Fargo at an address in Topanga. The return address was 1622 Lindero Lane.

Dear Ms. Fargo:

If you will come to the above address and ask for Mr. Charles McCauley, Miss Katherine McCauley, or Mr. Tom Bell as soon as may be convenient for you after receiving this letter, you may learn something to your advantage.

Respectfully,

Michael J. McCauley.

He looked closely at the signature. It looked real, and as though written with a real fountain pen, one of Mac’s foibles.

The girl asked, “Are you Michael J. McCauley?”

He stared.

“Well,” she said with a small grin, “I could tell you weren’t Katherine.”

“No, hey, I’m sorry. I’m Tom Bell.” He gave her back the letter. “You mean you don’t know Michael J. McCauley?”

“No.”

Tom said without expression, “He died a few days ago.”

She became very still, then dropped her eyes, made a gesture of embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know. Look, I could come back some other time... or maybe forget the whole thing.”

“No, no, come in and meet Charles and Katherine.”

He stepped back from the door.

“You sure it’s okay?”

He met her eyes. So like Katherine’s, but showing something Katherine’s had never shown: puzzlement, an almost quizzical caution.

“It’ll never be that,” he said. “But now’s as good a time as any.”

3

She came inside. He closed the door feeling oddly dangerous, like a blade with more than two sharp edges.

He led her across the hall to the library, knocked discreetly, opened the door without waiting for an answer. He ushered her inside, closing the door behind him.

The room was long, low-ceilinged, the gleam of polished wood and fine leather giving the impression of wealth taken too much for granted ever to seem ostentatious. The furniture was rich but utilitarian, a sofa and chairs made to be sat on, tables to be worked at, two walls lined with books to be thumbed through or read at leisure.

Alan Scherer, his coat off, sat in a low-slung leather chair with a glass of beer on a table by his elbow. He was a big man but soft, as though he’d never done anything more athletic than sign his name. He was only a year or two younger than Charles, but his face was unlined and friendly. He wore tinted aviator glasses and was taking a bite out of a sandwich. Beyond him, behind a considerable desk, Charles turned the page of a document. He had another beer on the desk blotter.

Glancing up briefly, Charles said, “What are you doing in that silly outfit?”

Alan smiled amiably until something snapped in his eyes. The smooth face became as hard as granite. He looked at Charles, back at the girl, swallowed. Charles looked up from his reading, beginning to frown.

“We have a visitor, gentlemen,” Tom said. “May I present Miss Shannon Fargo. Mr. Charles McCauley, Mr. Alan Scherer, his lawyer.”

Charles said blankly, “How d’you do?” and got to his feet behind the desk. Alan Scherer rose a few inches above his seat cushion, then fell back. Charles waved at the sofa while his expression went from surprise to closed mistrust. “Won’t you sit down?”

Shannon Fargo took the letter from its envelope and gave it to Charles, then went back and sat on the edge of the sofa, tightly folded hands in her lap.

Tom hitched a leg over the corner of a library table, watched Charles sit back down and read the letter. He read it again, handed it silently to Alan Scherer, and fixed his daughter’s look-alike with an empty stare.

He said, “Hardly a chummy letter, is it?”

“No,” the girl said.

“What was your relationship to Michael J. McCauley?”

“I didn’t even know him.”

“But you came in answer to the letter anyway. Taking a bit of a risk, weren’t you?”

“I wasn’t going to come, at first. But some friends looked you up at this address, hardly Skid Row, and said, hey, you never know, y’know. So I came.”

“Who are these friends?” Scherer asked, leaning forward to put the letter on the desk.

Shannon looked at Tom for help. He kept his face alertly neutral, looked away at the two men, then expectantly back at Shannon.

“Just... some friends.” Her voice wobbled.

“Have you some objection to telling us their names?”

“Yes, if you’re going to hassle them.” She stood up. Her voice had firmed. “Look, they were wrong, I was wrong. I came in answer to a letter from a dead man and apparently something’s—”

“How did you know he was dead?” Alan asked.

“I told her,” Tom said.

Charles said abruptly, “Get Katherine in here.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tom left. When he came back a minute later, saying she’d be right down, he found Shannon Fargo standing in front of the desk, refolding the letter.

“If you’ll let us keep that,” Alan Scherer said, “we can have it authenticated.”

She dropped the letter onto the desk. She was almost in tears.

“Blow your nose on it for all I care. It’s a sick joke played by someone with a sick mind.”

Tom said gently, “Michael McCauley didn’t have a sick mind.”

“We don’t know that he wrote that letter,” Charles objected.

“I don’t care who wrote it,” Shannon said, and turned to the door into the hall — just as it opened. Katherine came in wearing jodhpurs and a heavy sweater.

She closed the door, suddenly froze.

Shannon gasped.

Time went by.

Finally Katherine, her face like ice, approached for a closer look, raised a hand to push a lock of hair away from Shannon’s face. Then she took Shannon’s hands in both of hers and studied them, turning them over. They were blunt-nailed, already work-roughened. Katherine’s were slender, white, cared-for.

She released Shannon’s hands. Her voice was thin, precise, like an engraving on glass.

“You’re a fraud, of course.”

“How would you know?”

Shannon walked to the door and let herself out and closed the door quietly behind her.

Katherine’s lip curled. “Where did that come from, and what did it want?”

“I don’t know,” Charles growled. “Find out, Tom.”

Tom said, “Yes, sir,” with acid emphasis, and followed Shannon out.

Charles stared at the door he had left by.

“Sometimes,” he said after a moment, “I forget how much that boy owes this family — and so does he.”

“Not a boy any longer,” Alan said mildly. “He’s twenty-six. But he lost a dear friend in old Mac as well as a benefactor, and he’s burned up over the funeral.”

“He’d better get over it.” Charles tapped a finger on the document he’d been studying earlier. “Now maybe this makes more sense.”

Katherine said, “What does?”

“This.” Charles showed it to her. “Came in today’s mail.”

4

He called her name and was surprised when she stopped and waited for him.

“Yes?” she said guardedly.

“I want to apologize for throwing you into that piranha tank,” Tom said. “And to offer you a ride home.”

“Why?”

“To ease my conscience. To explain what that was all about. And, of course, to find out all I can about you. You don’t have to cooperate.”

“It’s quite a ways.”

“The 405 to the 101, west to Topanga Canyon Boulevard and up into the hills. How’d you get here?”

“Hitched a ride and took a bus and hitched another ride.”

“My way’s easier.”

“...Okay.”

He brought her back up the driveway. The garage was to the right of the house, way in back.

“Who was that?” Shannon asked. “My look-alike?”

“Katherine Anne McCauley. Charles is her father. Michael J. McCauley was his father. We just came back from his funeral.”

“I guess that’s why everyone’s so... stressed out.”

“Not really. They’re a pretty stressed-out family.”

“Aren’t you one of them?”

“I’m just the gardener’s kid. Or I was. I used to help my dad out. Michael J. had just retired from the family business, against his will, and was finding it heavy going. He was a marvelous old coot, ‘Mac’ to everyone, the original nonconformist. Back in the thirties he was one of the last of the barnstormers, flying one of those old jennies held together with string and sealing wax. Flew by the seat of his pants and built a business the same way, small-time air freight, then packaging for cargoes, a few other things. Eventually the business outgrew him. Charles eased him out and McCauley, Inc., became big business.

“Mac figured being retired didn’t mean just waiting to die. He was going to spend some of his money his way and have fun. Which is where I got lucky. I was a marginal delinquent and potential dropout, but he thought I was educable. He offered to take me in and give me all the education I could handle. My dad threatened to beat me stupid if I didn’t try it. So I did. Katherine was six, just graduating from nannies to governesses.”

“Where’s your dad now?”

“Died two years later. He’d been drinking himself to death for years. My mother died in a fall down stairs at a house where she was babysitting, when I was nine.”

“What about Michael J. — Mac?”

“Inoperable cancer.”

They had come to the garage. It had only three cars in it: Katherine’s Corvette, Mac’s old blue Camaro, and Tom’s Accord, a college graduation present from Mac. The Chrysler Imperial was still at the front door waiting for someone to tuck it in for the night.

She climbed into the Accord. He studied her face through the open window for a long time.

He said abruptly, “He was getting dependant on painkillers. He decided that was no way to live, so he wrote Charles a note and checked himself out. I found him when I went to his room to see if he was coming down to breakfast. Charles suppressed the note, and Mac’s doctor certified death by natural causes instead of an overdose of sleeping pills and good brandy. Everyone knew he’d left most of his money to Katherine, so when you show up three days later, suspicions break out in a rash: you’re part of a plot to raid Mac’s estate.”

He left her window and walked around the car and got in beside her.

Shannon said, “Because I look like her.”

“Enough like her to be her twin.”

She let out a dispirited breath. Tom started the car, eased it forward on the driveway and toward the front gate.

Shannon said, “They couldn’t maybe think it’s just a coincidence, huh?”

5

It was after dark when he got back. He found Charles, Katherine, and Alan Scherer still in the library, Katherine still in her riding togs and fingering a glass of white wine. Alan had a fresh beer at his elbow.

“Learn anything?” Charles asked.

“She works at Needham’s Flower Shop and Nursery in Malibu,” Tom said. “She ran away from home at sixteen, keeps in touch with her mother but doesn’t let her know where she is. And she sticks to her story: she never knew Michael J. McCauley, just got the letter and came here and got dumped on. She thinks her resemblance to Katherine is a coincidence, someone noticed it and sent the letter as a practical joke.”

“Do you think Mac wrote it?”

“No idea. Ask the experts.”

“Let’s keep this in the family for now,” Charles said.

“One interesting item: Shannon’s birth date. December thirteenth, nineteen seventy-three — the day after Katherine’s.”

A protesting sound came from Katherine’s throat. The stem of her wineglass snapped loudly. Her hands flew apart and wine spilled. The pieces of the glass thudded to the carpet.

She stood up slowly, looking down at the drenched jodhpurs, face dismissive, fastidious. The Ice Princess was in control again but her voice was brittle.

“Ring for Felipe, please, Daddy. I’ll want another glass.”

“Go change those clothes,” her father said.

“Just when everything’s getting so interesting?” She sat down again. “Tell Tom about the new will.”

Tom’s eyebrows lifted.

Charles sighed heavily, pushed the bell at the side of the desk, then picked up the document in front of him and dropped it back onto the blotter.

“Almost identical with the old one,” he said. “Same lump sum bequests to Tom and a few others. Only difference is that the first one left the major part of his estate to Katherine — not a fortune but still a fair amount of change — and this one divides it equally among ‘any surviving issue of my son, Charles Gordon McCauley.’ Which suggests I fathered more than one child. Which I certainly did not.”

“You didn’t draw this one up?” Tom asked Alan.

“No,” Alan said. “He went to a law firm in Beverly Hills. I guess he knew what he was going to do and didn’t want to clutter up his last days with unpleasantness. The new will’s dated two days before he died, the day before the letter to Shannon Fargo. He had the law firm mail me a copy.”

“I guess he got Shannon here to make sure somebody took the new will seriously,” Tom said.

“What d’you mean, ‘seriously’?” Katherine said angrily. “You think my father’s lying? That old fool loathed his own family and wanted to stir up trouble.”

A discreet knock on the door. Felipe came in. Katherine pointed to the broken glass and ordered another wine. Felipe picked up the pieces and left without a word.

“I suspect,” Tom said reasonably, “that Mac saw Shannon and learned who she was and wanted the possibility of a second granddaughter looked into.”

“How would you go about it?” Charles asked.

“I’d rather not. I’d have to pry my way into people’s lives and privacies.”

“For Christ’s sake, Tom, you’ve got a law degree,” Charles snapped. “In a few weeks the bar results will come out and you’ll be a lawyer. A bit late to get so thin-skinned. Don’t you owe this family something?”

“What I owe is to Mac. It’s a debt beyond repaying.”

There, he’d said it — put years of throttled resentment into words. Charles’s face closed like a fist. But Alan Scherer smiled easily.

“Lighten up, you guys.” He made a friendly gesture. “I think Tom’s right — if Mac did write that letter. Let’s assume he did. Yes, he’d have wanted Shannon’s background checked. If she turns out not to be a McCauley, Mac’s wish will have been fulfilled. The change in the will will have no practical value.”

Alan looked pleased with himself. Tom sighed.

“In other words,” he said slowly, “I should do the background check as a small payment on my debt to Mac.”

Alan grinned.

Tom said, “We all know you’re a world-class negotiator.”

“Besides,” Alan continued, “I think you’d be concerned for Shannon’s feelings, and wouldn’t be hell-bent to prove something against her.”

“Remember she hasn’t claimed to be a McCauley.”

“Yet,” Charles said heavily.

The discreet knock again. Felipe came in with a glass of white wine on a tray. He put the glass down on the table beside Katherine and went away.

Charles went on, “When’s the other shoe going to drop?” Katherine sipped her wine, watching her father. “When it does, I want to be ready, so I’m not buying into the benevolent explanations I’ve been hearing. Let’s satisfy my cautious nature and learn Fargo’s true parentage, which is all we need. Can you buy into that, Tom?”

Tom shrugged. “I guess so.”

Katherine said suddenly, “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that my own father, who is perfectly capable of giving orders, should have to justify and wheedle to get someone to do something he should be eager to do. Mac’s dead, Tom. What d’you think you are, a family member?”

She sat unmoving at the end of the sofa, still but not stiff, a picture of composure. She brought her wineglass to her lips and took a small sip.

Her father said gruffly, “I think you’ve had enough of that, Katherine.”

“Oh, really?” Her mouth curved into a soft smile. “Then I really mustn’t drink any more, must I?”

Still smiling, she tilted the wineglass and slowly, almost meditatively, poured its contents into her own lap.

She set the glass down carefully on the table and stood up. She spoke clearly, the last word a sharp bright dagger.

“I’m very, very angry.”

She walked without hurry to the door and went out. Tom realized that his mouth was open and closed it. Alan Scherer had been startled out of his habitual courtroom calm and seemed embarrassed. He looked at Charles as though expecting him to make some comment. Charles didn’t. No one ever did. Which made a weird incident even weirder.

“Right,” Tom said, taking a deep breath. “Mac’s dead, so I’ll be moving out. I’ll need a day or two to find a place.”

Charles’s eyes were the color of stones in a river, his face as unyielding as a bridge abutment.

“Keep your goddam shirt on, you’ve got a job to do.” The tension between them was as tangible as an iron bar. Then Charles said, “Ah, hell.” He sighed. “It’s been a long, lousy day. Meeting adjourned.”

6

Tom Bell had taken the California bar exam in July; the results wouldn’t be out until after Thanksgiving. Meantime he worked as a law clerk for Morgan and Scherer, Alan’s firm. He spent the following morning, and part of the afternoon, shepardizing cases the firm was using in a brief, a job involving concentration, precision, and almost paralyzing drudgery. Then Alan told him to go and gumshoe the Fargo matter.

He drove back to the McCauley house, went into the library, and closed the door behind him. At the phone he made sure his most relaxed manner, and most engaging attitude, were both in place before he punched in the number of Needham’s Flower Shop and Nursery.

A man answered, yelled for Shannon. A woman’s voice yelled back from a distance. Tom waited. At last she said, “Hello,” in his ear, sounding rushed but sunny.

“Hello, Shannon. It’s Tom Bell. From yesterday, at the McCauley house.”

“...Oh. Yes.” Sudden reluctance. “Hi.”

“Can I see you for a few minutes this afternoon?”

“Still checking up on me?”

“Charles is still suspicious. I want to prove him wrong.”

“Because you’re only the gardener’s kid?”

“Because he’s a horse’s ass. I promise I won’t take long.”

“This afternoon’s real bad. We’re short-staffed and getting some new stock in, so I won’t have time. Could you come by my place? I should be home by six.”

He said he would be there and hung up. It was just after four. Time to kill.

It died hard. He wanted to get on with the job, and he wanted to see Shannon again — and at the same time wanted nothing to do with the job. It might mean ripping Shannon from her family moorings. He might have to coldly deceive and manipulate people. He’d never thought of himself as that kind of creep and didn’t want to become one.

In his room, he spent time reading up on wills and related law in Clark, Lusky, and Murphy’s Gratuitous Transfers, finally gave up, and went down to the kitchen to tell the cook he wouldn’t be there for dinner. While he was there Katherine came in to pirate a glass of apple juice. She was just home from UCLA, where she was enrolled as a business administration major.

She demanded, “Where are you off to?”

“Private-eye work for your dad.”

“A date with my look-alike, I’ll bet. I’ll come too, to keep you honest.”

“No way.”

Her eyes grew flinty. “Just try giving me orders, chum.”

“I work better without an audience.”

“Get used to audiences. Or how are you going to argue cases in court?”

“Maybe you don’t want me to find any answers.”

He pushed out of the kitchen and took the back stairs to his room, where he tried Gratuitous Transfers again but couldn’t concentrate. Anyway, he had no way of knowing what might be relevant to the McCauley situation. He gave up and put on a light nylon jacket and hurried downstairs and out the front door. Leaving early was better than staying in the same house as Katherine.

When he reached the garage he found Katherine already at the wheel of her red Corvette. She wore lightly tinted glasses and had a bandanna over her hair. She ignored him as he got into the Accord, but pulled out directly behind him and followed him out into the street.

The community of Topanga was cuddled in shadowy twilight. A few streets poked away from the boulevard into the surrounding hills and hollows. The low frame and stucco buildings had always looked wonderfully rustic and 1930s and inexpensive, which Topanga wasn’t, but big pieces of earth-moving equipment stood around, suggesting that a major reshaping of the landscape had been going on up to quitting time. Maybe the urban 1990s were invading. Too bad.

Just beyond the heart of Topanga, Tom pulled off the roadway and parked in the dust. The Corvette passed him and did the same. Tom got out and walked to it. Katherine was rolling up her window. She stopped when she saw him, looked up without expression.

Tom said, “Please, Katherine, remember that I have to get that girl to trust me.”

“Why should she? I don’t. That’s why I’m checking up on you. — How long will you be?”

“As long as it takes. Please don’t interfere.”

Katherine sighed. “Well, since you ask so nicely.”

“Thank you.”

He turned away before she could change her mind.

There was a low white stuccoed wall around the house with an exuberant bougainvillea spilling over it. Tom went through the low wooden gate and latched it behind him, then took the pathway between two patches of lawn up to the front porch. Beyond the porch, curtains were drawn behind the front windows. The house looked worn, old, and comfortable. It was owned by Mrs. Sarah Needham, whose son David ran the place where Shannon worked.

At the porch, the path divided left and right. He went left, then right, past the corner of the house. A few more curtained windows. Two concrete steps led to a door with a street number painted on a little wooden arm projecting from the frame.

He went up the steps and knocked on the door. Shannon opened it almost at once.

“Oh, hi.”

“If I’m too early,” Tom said, “I can go away and come back later.”

“No, no, of course not.” She stepped back, opening the door wider. “We actually got through early.”

“I took the chance because Katherine was bugging me,” he said as he stepped inside. “She even followed me up here. I just hope she leaves us alone.”

Shannon closed the door behind him. She was wearing jeans and a blue denim work shirt that had been worn and washed till they were both almost white. She looked as much like Katherine as ever.

The room was small and bright, with rock concert and environmentalist posters taped to the walls. Furniture was minimal: a day bed, a worn armchair, a card table set up under the one window with two lightweight chairs, a few big cushions inviting people to sit on the floor. On the card table were a stiffened photo mailer, a dime-store frame with the back off, a bottle of glass cleaner, a rag.

“I got carded last time I tried to buy a bottle of wine,” Shannon said, “so I can’t offer you any.”

“Don’t let it worry you. I expected to be treated as a nuisance, not as a guest.”

“Would you like some herb tea?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

She smiled a little awkwardly and disappeared behind a curtain. He heard water running into a kettle. Moments later she came back.

“Kitchen’s to the left,” she said, pointing back at the curtain, “bathroom’s to the right. Both the size of phone booths. Sit down, for goodness sake, and tell me how I can convince Mr. McCauley I’m not a threat.”

He sat down at the card table. She took the other chair as he fished a sheet of paper out of a pocket.

“You told me you were born December thirteenth, nineteen seventy-three, right?”

She nodded.

“You never told me where.”

“The Palmer Clinic, in Yucaipa. That’s down near San Bernardino.”

A sudden chill burst under his breastbone.

“And your parents were?”

She almost told him — but stopped herself.

“Sorry, Shannon. I wasn’t trying to trick you. Fargo’s not your real name, is it?”

Almost accusingly, she shook her head.

“That’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Now I want to show you” — he unfolded the sheet of paper — “a copy of someone else’s birth certificate.”

She took it, read the name. Her nose wrinkled. “Pretty Katie Icicles.” Then her mouth sagged open. Her eyes were shocked.

“Yes.” His mouth was dry. He tried clearing his throat. “I got the original from Charles this morning and copied it on his fax machine. Katherine was born just before midnight, December twelfth, nineteen seventy-three, at the Palmer Clinic in Yucaipa — where you were born some time after midnight.”

She stood up. Her lips were bloodless, her face stark with shock. She saw she was still holding the photocopy and threw it down on the table as though afraid of contagion.

Beyond the curtain, the tea kettle had begun to whistle. She ignored it, or didn’t hear it.

“A strong resemblance could be a coincidence,” Tom said slowly. “But you’re as alike as two matched pearls, and the coincidences are kind of piling up.”

Her face showed the beginnings of fear.

She said defensively, “So?”

“So I don’t know what it all means any more than you do. This is going to jolt hell out of the McCauleys.”

“What exactly are you doing for them?”

“Finding out who you are — so they’ll know you aren’t another McCauley. Nothing sinister.”

After a while Shannon nodded vaguely, muttered something about that shrieking kettle, and went back behind the curtain. The shrill whistle died. A minute later she reappeared carrying two steaming china mugs. She set them down on the card table. The steam was fresh and minty. She went away again and came back with a saucer.

“For your tea bag, when it’s steeped enough.”

She sat down at the table again, withdrawn, maybe thoughtful, her eyes unfocused. The copy of Katherine’s birth certificate had landed on top of the photo mailer. She took it by one corner, slid it toward Tom. He refolded it and tucked it into the zippered chest pocket of his nylon jacket. Absently, she folded back the flap of the mailer and took out a five-by-seven color print. She gave it a glance and turned it toward him.

“Me and some friends down at the beach. Back when things were simple.”

Half a dozen grinning, laughing young people, Shannon among them, were crowded around an elderly man who sat at the tiller of a small sailboat. He had a weatherbeaten face and an open grin, wore a frayed shirt and a yachtsman’s cap.

“Who’s the old geezer?”

“That’s the Skipper.” A hint of animation crept back into her face and voice. “I don’t know his real name, I only met him a couple of times. That’s his boat. My friends say he’s retired, likes to do some sailing when the weather’s nice, sometimes springs for a six-pack or a bottle of wine.”

Shannon picked up the frame, examined the glass for dust and traces of cleaner, and slid the photo behind it. She pushed the cardboard backing into the frame behind the photo, laid the picture face-down on the table, and just sat there a while.

Finally she gave a ragged sigh.

“Okay. My dad was Curtis John Farr. He died when I was six. My mom is Eileen Scott Farr, who lives in San Pedro and works as a beautician. They were married when she was twenty and he was thirty. I was born ten years later.”

“Why’d you change your name?”

“I ran away when I was sixteen. Well, sort of. I mean I write my mom pretty regularly, no return address. I don’t want her to be able to trace me. I mean... we fight all the time. Can’t agree on anything. Well, I looked up and saw this big billboard for Wells Fargo Bank and thought, well, Farr, Fargo, why not?”

“And the Shannon part?”

“That’s real. Shannon Elayne.” Then fretfully, “Oh God. Am I going to regret this...?”

Someone knocked on the door.

“I mean trusting you with all this?”

He said grimly, “Not if I can help it,” stood up, and crossed quickly to the door and opened it.

Katherine said from the concrete step, “I got tired of waiting.”

“No one asked you to wait. You promised me—”

“Changed my mind. Going to let me in, or just stand there looking silly and self-righteous?” A light rippling laugh. “Come on, Tom. Loosen up.”

“It’s okay, let her in,” Shannon said behind him.

Tom moved aside. Katherine came in. She had shed the bandanna and the dark glasses. She took in the room in a half-amused, half-contemptuous glance.

Shannon said cautiously, “Hello again.”

“I thought we’d best get acquainted,” Katherine said. “Tom, don’t let us keep you, I’m sure you have things to do.” She smiled serenely. “It’s quite safe, leaving us alone together.”

Tom said to Shannon, “Talk to you outside a minute?”

She nodded and preceded him through the door into near night. The air had developed an edge. There was no wind. Trees made no sound.

They walked to the corner of the house. Someone had turned the porch light on.

“I don’t know what she’s up to,” Tom said. “If you like I’ll stay, or get rid of her for you,”

“How? No, it’s all right, I’ll be okay.”

“Okay. I don’t want you taken by surprise if she sees that picture you showed me. The guy you called the Skipper? That’s Michael J. McCauley. That’s Mac.”

Half in shadow, half illuminated by the porch light, her face was still and grave. Her mouth formed an almost inaudible, “Oh.” Then she said, almost as quietly, “He did ask me where I was from, who my folks were. I said I was a runaway and couldn’t tell him much...” A short stressful sigh. “You’re going to talk to my mom, aren’t you?”

“If I may.”

“Well... give her my love.”

“Okay.” He thought a moment, then took her face in his hands and kissed her, undemandingly, on the mouth.

She didn’t object. “Which one of us was that for?”

He was too surprised to answer. She went on, “Ever make it with her?”

“Her? Katherine?... No. Never.”

“Why not?”

“Because it never occurred to me. Because she would’ve killed me for even trying, and then her father would’ve killed me.”

“Okay. Good night.”

Tom left. Shannon went back inside, found Katherine still standing in the middle of the room.

“Sorry to interrupt your tea party,” she said abruptly, “but I was quite beastly to you yesterday. I’m sorry. In my own inadequate defense, I can only say that I was, well, shaken. Someone was trespassing on my property — my face. But it’s not just mine, is it? Let me make amends and take you to dinner.”

“That would be lovely,” Shannon said, surprised. “Are you always Katherine, all three syllables?”

“All three syllables.”

“Never Kathy, or Katie, or Kate, anything like that?”

“No.” A tiny hesitation, almost a breach in Katherine’s armor of certainty. “But you can call me one of those if you want.”

7

Tom called from a pay phone at the gas station on Ventura. His mood had brightened. He looked forward to making Charles uncomfortable.

“Any luck?” Charles asked.

“Some information, anyway,” Tom said. “According to her birth certificate, Katherine was born at the Palmer Clinic in Yucaipa just before midnight on December twelfth, nineteen seventy-three. Shannon Fargo says she was born at the Palmer Clinic in Yucaipa on December thirteenth.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m going to see her mother to try to get a look at Shannon’s birth certificate. And Mac definitely knew Shannon. I saw a photograph of him on his boat with a crowd of young people, including Shannon. She says she only knew him as the Skipper, and only met him a couple of times. That can be easily checked out.

“Now. You guys got me investigating this girl by saying I’d be doing Mac a favor. Are you sure you want me to finish the job?”

Pause. Charles shifted in his chair before answering.

“If I tell you to quit,” he growled, “you might later have to testify that the investigation of Shannon Fargo, which I had ordered, was canceled when it looked as though awkward information might be developed, and that therefore no proper search of her background was made. So obviously you can’t quit, can you?”

“I guess not.”

“There’s no awkward information to develop.”

You hope. “Okay.”

Tom hung up.

The area code for San Bernardino was 909. Surely nearby Yucaipa was the same. Tom dialed 909 Directory Assistance and was asked what city. He said Yucaipa, the Palmer Clinic. It wasn’t listed. And in San Bernardino? Nothing there either.

But Eileen Scott Farr was listed in San Pedro. Armed with her address and phone number, he got back onto the freeway.

8

Etienne’s was a quietly busy restaurant in Toluca Lake, not quite formal enough to question Shannon’s attire. A hostess in a white gown, who obviously knew Katherine, showed them to a table where glass and silverware winked with quiet exclusivity and the linen was crisp and snowy. She murmured with a small, nonintrusive smile, “One would almost think you two were related!”

Shannon stiffened. Katherine smiled brilliantly.

“Wouldn’t you, though? But actually we’re not.” For a moment the hostess looked blank. Then her smile became rueful. She said, “Oops! — sorry!” and then cranked the smile back up, a co-conspirator, and said their waitress would be with them in a moment.

When she had gone, Katherine said quietly, picking up her menu, “But we almost have to be, don’t we?”

“I don’t see how we can be.”

“We might start by asking my mother, but I’ve no idea where she is, or even if she’s still alive. My parents were divorced when I was a baby and my father got full custody. Of course I don’t remember my mother, there are no pictures of her, and Daddy never talks about her.”

The cocktail waitress arrived. Shannon, who didn’t want to get carded in a place like Etienne’s, said, “Nothing for me, thanks.” Katherine thought a moment, then said she’d just have a glass of the house red wine. The waitress went away.

Shannon said, “You do that like you were thirty years old.”

“When I’m ordering a drink I am thirty years old, casual and thinking about something else entirely. Never been carded. Maturity is a matter of attitude.”

Their regular waitress arrived and took their orders. Katherine turned the conversation around to Shannon, learned where she worked, that making things grow in pots and planters and flowerbeds had been a big preoccupation since she was ten. She was learning to play the mandolin, and to throw and fire pottery. Where all this would lead was a question that didn’t bother her. And what about Katherine’s future? A law degree?

“Not a chance,” Katherine said firmly, “though I may be prejudiced against the law because it’s Tom’s field.”

“Don’t you like him?”

“Not really. He’s too determined to prove he hasn’t sold out to McCauley money. In a way he’s too like my grandfather, who founded the family business. The bigger it got, the more he had to prove he was the same scrappy undisciplined character he was when he was twenty years old and flat broke. He enjoyed the amenities of money but no longer the company of those still engaged in earning it. Antagonized a lot of people. He said my dad was just a bean counter, but the business grew quite a bit after my father took over. Old Mac resented that.”

Her wine arrived.

“Weren’t you jealous,” Shannon asked, “of the attention your granddad gave Tom?”

Wrong question. She sensed Katherine’s chilled withdrawal. Maybe she had assumed that her growing ease in Katherine’s presence meant a growing friendliness on Katherine’s part. Dumb assumption.

But Katherine’s eyes slid sideways thoughtfully.

“I suppose I must have been. Mac brought Tom into the house when he was fourteen and I was six. I was already a pretty good rider, but my grandfather was soon taking Tom to the club for skeet shooting. D’you suppose that’s why last year I made it into the state finals in the junior women’s division?”

“Skeet shooting?”

“Tom wasn’t really interested and soon quit. I was determined to show him up. But riding’s what I like best.”

“You could open a riding academy.”

“It’s just a recreation, I’m afraid. My father says the family business is a responsibility we’re born to. I’m sure he would rather I’d been a boy.”

“Just so he doesn’t want you to go out for football.”

Katherine laughed. “And what will you be doing ten years from now? Playing mandolin in coffeehouses around college campuses?”

“Raising kids and roses in a tract house in Burbank? I dunno. I’m still finding out who I am.”

“When you do,” Katherine said delicately, “be sure to let me know, will you?”

Shannon almost snapped, “I should’ve said ‘what I am.’ I already know who. And at least I know for sure I’m not a girl who wants to be a boy.”

Katherine murmured, “Temper, temper,” and drank some wine.

9

Two freeway transitions later, Tom was on the Harbor Freeway southbound for San Pedro. There he took an off-ramp at random, asked directions at a gas station, and five minutes later parked in front of Eileen Farr’s address, 1834 N. Sylvan. It was half of a slightly rundown stucco duplex with a Spanish tile roof and a malnourished little front yard. Lights were on behind curtained front windows. He got out and locked his car and climbed onto the porch, took a deep breath and readied a relaxed smile as he rang the doorbell and stepped back, to be clearly visible and nonthreatening.

After a wait, the barred Judas window in the door suddenly opened.

“Yes?” A woman’s voice, tentative and querulous.

He stepped closer to the door again.

“Ms. Eileen Farr?”

“Yes?”

“Hello. My name is Tom Bell, and I’ve just come from seeing your daughter.”

“Yes?”

“Shannon sends her love. She wants you to know she’s well, and working, and contented.”

“Where? Doing what?”

“I’m sorry — that’s what I promised not to tell you.”

“Who are you? I don’t know you.”

“My name’s Tom Bell, and I work for a lawyer named Scherer—”

“What’s she done? She’s in trouble, isn’t she?”

“No, ma’am, nothing like that—”

“Then what’s this lawyer got to do with anything?”

Didn’t like lawyers. But lots of people didn’t.

“Well, nothing, really.” He wished he knew how firm to be, how accommodating. Instinct said forget firmness. “What happened is this. Someone noticed that Shannon is an almost perfect double for a young woman named McCauley. This young woman stands to inherit a truckload of money. The McCauleys are trying to determine if this is just a coincidence, or if the two young women could be related in some way, or what?”

“How much money?”

Eileen Farr came closer to the window. He saw lively short fair hair framing a face of considerable faded prettiness despite lines and weariness.

“I don’t know, Ms. Farr, but I understand it’s quite a bit.”

“So?”

“So Shannon says she’s no relation, she’s the daughter of Curtis and Eileen Scott Farr, and she was born at the Parker Clinic in Yucaipa on December thirteenth, nineteen seventy-three.”

“Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Actually, yes, it’s enough for me, but my boss says it would be better if we could get official confirmation — if you could show me her birth certificate.”

Tom heard a sharp intake of breath.

“Did that... what’s her name? — did Estelle Marchand put you up to this?”

“Who?”

“You know perfectly well who!”

“Sorry, Ms. Farr, I never heard of her. What’s she got to do with anything?”

“...Nothing,” Eileen Farr said. “Enough questions. Good night.”

The Judas window started to close.

To keep it open a moment longer, he asked the first question that came into his head.

“Did you know that a medical examination can prove conclusively whether a woman has ever had a baby?”

Silence. For seconds he didn’t even hear traffic noises. Then, from behind the little barred window, came a sigh like lost hope.

“I know that,” Eileen said after a moment. “What has that got to do with anything? What do you want?”

“Only to see Shannon’s birth certificate, Ms. Farr.”

“And then you’ll go away and stop bothering me?”

“I promise.”

She left the window. Five minutes later she came back and stuck another copy through the bars. He took it and thanked her and examined it under the porch light and compared it with Katherine’s from his jacket pocket. Except for the parents’ names, the babies’ names, and the times of birth, they were identical, signed by attending physician Dr. Henry E. Palmer and by a registrar or assistant registrar named Clayton Hackett.

Sadness felt like the weight of half the world.

But you never had a baby, did you, Ms. Farr? He had tricked her. Guilt crawled in his gut like maggots.

He handed the copy back through the bars, smiling.

“Thank you, Ms. Farr. That’s just what I needed, and I promise I won’t bother you again.”

“See you don’t.”

He had a glimpse of the faded pretty face clamped in a look of rejection, but in the second before she closed the Judas window he saw the blue eyes jitter, the mouth begin to tremble.

He pocketed Katherine’s photocopy and left the porch and went to his car. He felt lousy. He was doing what Mac had wanted but Mac wouldn’t have been proud of him.

10

Katherine let herself into the house, dropped her keys into her purse, and stuffed her bandanna in on top of them. She left her purse on the hall table, under the mirror, and checked her appearance. Casual, in control. A slick magazine photo of the affluent young college woman moving confidently into a rosy future.

A warm resiny smell drew her to the living room. A fire burned in the grate, and a single floor lamp threw light onto the book her father was reading in the easy chair beyond the fireplace.

He raised a hand to acknowledge her but went on reading. She crossed to the fireplace and extended her hands to its warmth, finally turned her head to look at him.

He closed the book on a finger.

“What have you been up to?”

“I spent the evening with Shannon Fargo,” Katherine said.

“What on earth for?”

“Curiosity, I guess.”

He reopened his book. “Any interesting observations?”

“She’s a vagrant child in some ways, but she’s quite combative when her buttons are pushed. She’d hide that, if she were a fraud.”

“So Shannon’s innocent. Feminine intuition?”

“Intuition’s neither more nor less valid when it comes in frilly underwear than when it’s accompanied by a blast of manly cigar smoke.”

“Either way it’s pretty unreliable.”

“I promise to remind you of that next time you have a gut reaction to something.”

“Shannon could be innocent as a lamb unborn and still be the tool of someone who isn’t. Did you see the picture of your grandfather and Shannon and some others that Tom saw when he was at Shannon’s place?”

Her mouth fell open. Only for a count of three. Being surprised was only bad if you let it show. She was sure there’d been no such pictures visible on Shannon’s walls. Had she hidden it? That didn’t sound so innocent.

“No, I’m afraid not.” Being disappointed was dumb. “I guess I have egg on my shirt.”

“Nobody’s perfect,” Charles said.

Katherine said carefully, “I have to admit I find it hard to believe we’re not related.”

“But you’re not. Period. Stay away from that girl, will you? We don’t need defectors under our roof.”

“...All right.” She left the fire, careful to maintain the erect posture, the graceful carriage. “Guess I’ll call it a day. Good night.” In her own room a minute later, her composed exterior crumbled suddenly to reveal a terrible anguish. Which frightened her. When she got herself under control again, it also baffled her. She wasn’t a silly adolescent who wore her emotions outside her clothes like cheap jewelry. She would have sworn she didn’t have them, except for an occasional flare of anger. Maybe she was more tired than she realized.

She started the bathtub filling and took off her clothes. She didn’t wear frilly underwear.

11

It was almost eleven-thirty when Tom got home. He followed the piney scent into the living room and found Charles pouring brandy at the liquor cabinet in the far corner.

Tom asked abruptly, “Who’s Estelle Marchand?”

“No idea. Why?”

“When I asked to see Shannon’s birth certificate, Shannon’s mother asked if Estelle Marchand had put me up to it.”

“Couldn’t find out from Mama, eh?”

“No. But I’ll bet Shannon’s mother isn’t her biological mother.”

Charles came back to his armchair. His slatey eyes had a gun-barrel directness. The flat anvil lips looked hard as rock.

“I take it you didn’t see the birth certificate.”

“Sure I did. Mama was reluctant but responded to threats. The certificate confirmed everything Shannon had told me — names, dates, and places.”

Charles stared at him bleakly for a long moment, then sat down thoughtfully.

“You said Shannon’s mother wasn’t Shannon’s mother.”

“She didn’t want to show me the certificate,” Tom said. “Why not? What could it show? Evidence of forgery, some kind of fraud? Anyhow, because this whole business is about identity and parentage, I got this wild idea and asked her if she knew that a medical examination could determine conclusively whether a woman had ever given birth. Which scared her.”

“How would you force her to submit to such an examination?”

“I probably couldn’t. But she was too rattled to think through any of that. I took advantage of her lack of sophistication to intimidate her, for which I feel fairly lousy. But I still haven’t proved that Shannon isn’t a McCauley.”

“Doesn’t the birth certificate do that?”

“Not if it’s fraudulent.”

“And you’re planning to challenge it — as part of what you owe Mac? Any other secret agendas?”

“You told me to prove she wasn’t a McCauley. Mac wanted to find out if she was. That’s the agenda and that’s all of it. Oh — one more thing. In all these years I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the circumstances surrounding your divorce from the former Mrs. McCauley.”

“The subject is distasteful. And irrelevant.”

“Possibly. But why would Mrs. Charles Gordon McCauley, moneyed lady of West L.A., give birth in a small private clinic in Yucaipa? If you hide behind your right to privacy, you’ll never shake the suspicion that she might have had twins.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, looked sideways into the fire. He sighed as though contemplating an unpleasant chore. Then he nodded, took a swallow of brandy.

“Married the wrong woman,” he said without much interest. “I was old enough to know better but apparently didn’t. Met Mary Jane Crayle at a party in Santa Monica. She was pretty, warmhearted, verbally skillful, and funny, so I thought she was smart. Married her three days later. Well, repent at leisure. Soon she was thoroughly unhappy and I was going out of my mind. Hormones are a lousy guide. She was only a couple of years younger than I, but a sentimental hippie at heart. Wanted to adopt every stray dog or street bum that crossed her path. Flowers in her hair and feathers in her brain. No idea what it meant to be a businessman’s wife. One day about six months into this disaster we had a big fight and she walked out in the clothes she had on.

“Seven or eight months later she called to say she needed money, would it be all right if she got a thousand-dollar cash advance on a bank card? She said she’d pay it back in cash. All the time she’d been away she hadn’t charged so much as a gallon of gas. I said, are you coming back? She said she didn’t know yet.

“I said okay about the advance, but you’ve got one week from today to make your mind up about coming back. When I didn’t hear from her in that time, I closed all her charge accounts. Anything she wanted she could come and ask for.

“In a few more weeks I’d had enough. If I got wiped out on the freeway, she could show up and make heavy demands on my estate. So Alan hired a gumshoe outfit to track her down. We knew she was somewhere southeast of here, but she’d been pretty careful not to let us know where: the little cash payments on the loan got mailed from anywhere between Anaheim and San Diego. Anyhow, she turned up slinging hash in a chain restaurant in San Bernardino and had a six-week-old kid. I had her kept under surveillance for a few weeks to document the difficulties of being a single mother with a fairly menial job and no resources, and then I sued for divorce — and for custody of Katherine, on the grounds that her mother was irresponsible and incapable of properly providing for her. I got the divorce and the kid, and Mary Jane went back into the woodwork. Never saw or heard from her again.”

“What about her folks? The Crayle family?”

“Estranged. Never any contact.”

“She take you for a bundle in the settlement?”

“No.”

“California law says she must have had counsel.”

“Counsel said go for half the community property. She said no. Some people are dumb. They’ll give up enough to make them comfortable for life — just for a gesture. Mac talked her into taking a lump-sum settlement.”

“Why did you take Katherine?”

A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Are you thinking vindictiveness? Well, goddamnit, it was because she was my daughter and I could give her a better life! Even her mother conceded that.”

The protest was too fast and too vehement. Clearly vindictiveness had played a part. A big part.

“Never any hint Katherine might have had a sister?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Go to bed.”

It sounded like an order. Tom summoned a wide grin to remind Charles that he didn’t have to obey it, but Charles already had his eyes on the pages of his book.

Tom shook his head, straining to keep the grin in place, then turned and went upstairs.

12

His second-floor room didn’t seem like much of a sanctuary tonight; now it was just a room with some indifferent furniture, a place he could walk away from without regret.

Tom hung up his nylon jacket, and someone tapped on his door.

“Yes?”

The tapping stopped. The door opened. Katherine stood in the doorway wearing a plump white terrycloth bathrobe. Her slippers were light fur-lined pixie boots. She didn’t have the glow of someone fresh from the tub, but a few tendrils of damp hair escaped the towel turbaned around her head.

Her face was calm, empty. The Ice Princess was in residence. The Ice Princess was in control. The Ice Princess didn’t give a damn.

She asked, “Did you learn anything tonight?”

He shrugged. “Not enough to prove anything.”

“Of course.” She made a dismissive gesture and came into the room and closed the door. He hesitated a moment before waving her to the room’s one comfortable leather-upholstered chair.

She sat down primly, folded her arms across her middle. He parked himself at the foot of the bed.

She said, “So Shannon knew my grandfather.”

Maybe Shannon had told her. Or Charles.

“She says she only knew him as the Skipper,” Tom said, “a friendly old guy who owned a boat.”

“You believe her?”

“No reason not to.”

“I hope you’re looking for one,” Katherine said. “I hope you have enough self-respect not to decide people are innocent just because you find them physically attractive.”

“How did she strike you?”

“As pleasant, but then she would make sure she gave that impression, wouldn’t she, to keep up the charade?”

“There’s one person who might clear all this up, you know. Your mother.”

She became very still. For long seconds she barely breathed.

“My... mother.” As though she had trouble remembering she’d ever had one.

“Someone gave birth to you. She ought to know if you had a twin.”

“I told her,” Katherine said, “I told Shannon, I mean, that I thought we had to be related...”

The words trailed off. Her lips began to tremble. She raised a hand to punch her lower lip, then sat with her forefinger pressed vertically across her mouth.

Tom asked carefully, “What can you tell me about your mother?”

First she shook her head. Then after a while she slid her finger off her lips. When she spoke, her diction was more aristocratic, more coldly precise. “Her name was Mary Jane Crayle. She was some kind of silly sixties cliché, one of those hemophiliac hippies with a bleeding heart for every stray dog and hopeless cause they’d like you to spend money on.” Secondhand attitudes, learned from Charles; but there was pain behind them. Her words came faster. “She walked out without even letting my father know she was pregnant. I don’t know where she is. I don’t even know if she’s alive. I hope she isn’t. I don’t want to talk about her.”

Suddenly, violently, she pushed herself up out of the chair. She folded her arms across her waist again, breathing hard, staring at the wall behind his head as though trying to read an invisible message scrawled on it. The right side of her upper lip had begun twitching.

The Ice Princess was losing it.

Anxiety closed like a fist in his gut.

“Then we won’t,” he said mildly, and stood up. “Let’s go downstairs, brew some tea or something.”

Her eyes closed. One hand came up to cover the twitching lip. She opened her eyes again. The hand on her mouth muffled her words.

“Is... is she really attractive? Shannon. Do you find Shannon attractive?”

He made a random gesture.

“Well, yes, she’s attractive, but...”

“More than I am?”

The hand came away from her mouth and settled at her waist. He tried to summon the politic grin.

“Well, you’re as alike as two peas in a pod...”

Her lip was doing erratic things again.

“M-m-m-more than I am?”

The hands at her waist pulled apart. So did the two ends of the sash holding the terrycloth bathrobe closed. She pulled the robe open. She hadn’t anything on under it. Nothing except Katherine with last summer’s light tan, except where her bikini had kept the sun off.

Tom gulped air. Mustn’t touch her. Touch her and she might shatter. Or go hysterical. He said numbly, “Katherine, this isn’t too good an idea.”

She raised a hand to still her lip again. Her face was expressionless but the clear blue eyes were shading toward... bereavement? Her face crumpled.

She said in a bewildered little-girl voice, “Nobody wants me.”

He almost said, “Huh?” He tried to say, “Nonsense,” but what came out was a shapeless mumble. He felt stupid and useless. His impulse was to reassure her as anyone might a little kid, with endearments and hugs, but the grownup under the little-girl bewilderment might read endearments as sarcasm, hugs as molestation, so for a while he just stared into the hopeless blue eyes until, without conscious volition, he found himself reaching out to tug the bathrobe closed, murmuring, “Aw, honey, you know that’s not true,” getting no resistance when he tied the sash at her waist.

He stepped back. No hug. A hug could lead to disaster. Hormones had their imperatives but self-preservation said ignore them. She had said no one wanted her and wasn’t far wrong. Her father had taken her from Mary Jane out of sheer spite and never forgiven her for not being a son, and had turned her into a bitchy, demanding kid who grew into a bitchy, demanding young woman. Her grandfather had given up on her and chosen a surrogate grandson to mold into a continuation of himself. From the very start, Tom had been an insult and a threat to Katherine. Something to feel bad about, yes, but it was for damn sure he didn’t want her. Too much blood under the bridge. Only blind fear could have driven her to turn to him for comfort.

He felt a rush of choking regret.

Katherine closed her eyes and fumbled in the pocket of her robe for a tissue and blew her nose. Then she stuffed the tissue back into her pocket and opened her eyes.

The little girl was gone.

The composed young woman gave him a faintly puzzled look that quickly modulated into razor-edged contempt.

“You’re so transparent.”

She was going to pretend that the last few minutes had never happened. Or perhaps had already blanked them from her mind.

He cleared his throat. “Meaning?”

“It’s obvious why you’re doing this. To make your new lady friend an heiress, so you can get your hands on some real McCauley money.”

“Yeah. Sure. Any other insights to share?”

Katherine smiled — smugly, secretly — to herself, then nodded, triumphantly agreeable. She said good night and left without closing the door.

Tom closed it himself. Perhaps he should find Charles and tell him to check up on Katherine, she’d been acting hysterically. It wouldn’t do any good. The Ice Princess was back. Charles would think he was crazy.

He got ready for bed. Maybe she hadn’t come to him for comfort. Maybe she’d just been setting him up — to embarrass him? To charge him with something serious?

He sacked out. His dreams were chaotic, erotic, angry.

13

His alarm clock woke him at seven. He showered and shaved and still felt less than human. He dressed and went downstairs, checked on breakfast, went into the library. He picked up the phone and dialed Alan’s home number.

“Scherer,” Alan said without interest.

“Tom Bell. Hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Oh, hi. No, I was just heading into breakfast. Did you learn anything yesterday?”

“Some. I met the lady who claims to be Shannon Fargo’s mother.” He summarized briefly. “The Parker Clinic is now closed. It might be interesting to know why. Two questions: Do you know where Charles’s ex-wife is? And does the name Estelle Marchand ring any bells?”

“No. I’ll check around. As to Charles’s ex-wife...” A pause. Alan sighed gustily. “Is there any way to leave Mary Jane out of this? Charles doesn’t want her contacted. He doesn’t even know where she is, even on which coast — she was originally from somewhere in Maine — or even if she’s still alive. Besides, he’s sure she wouldn’t know anything about Shannon, so why waste time?”

“What’s he hiding?”

“I think he just doesn’t want to open an emotional can of worms. Mary Jane was a very appealing lady, very open intellectually and emotionally. I think that’s what first attracted Charles, even if it did later drive him up the wall. He was a lot younger then, not quite the no-nonsense adding machine we all admire. Forget I said that — he’s a friend as well as a valued client. Keep digging, we don’t want to get blindsided. I’ll get back to you about this what’s-her-name, Estelle Marchand.”

Tom hung up and went in to breakfast.

Charles, in a business suit and tie and a gleaming white shirt, was taking his place at the table and Felipe was filling his cup with pungent dark coffee. Tom’s place setting featured a glass of orange juice.

Felipe asked brightly, “Coffee, Mista Tom?”

“Please. Morning, Charles.” He sat down. Felipe poured his coffee, then put the pot on the warmer on the sideboard.

“You look like hell,” Charles said.

Tom thanked him and drained half his orange juice. Felipe presented a large platter from which they served themselves bacon and eggs. The four-slice toaster on the sideboard popped up. Felipe put the toast in a silver rack and put it on the table as Katherine came in.

She had on a pink and blue dressing gown closed up to her throat. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her face was pale and cold, her lips bloodless.

Felipe said, “Coffee?” and filled her cup when she nodded. He offered her the eggs and bacon. She waved them away.

“Get me a couple of scrambled eggs on toast.”

“Yes, miss.” Felipe returned the platter to the sideboard, covered it, and left the room. Katherine picked up her coffee cup with both hands and inhaled the steam.

Charles said shortly, “Variant orders should be given in advance. And in this house we are polite to the servants.”

Katherine said, “Really.”

“And we don’t display hangovers or bad temper at the breakfast table.”

Katherine slammed down her cup. Coffee slopped into the saucer and onto the tablecloth. She scraped back her chair and stood up and stalked out.

Charles’s face settled into its anvil scowl.

“That girl’s got to learn how to handle a little stress.”

“Not from you, I hope,” Tom said. “Stressed or not, you handle everything and everyone with the unerring instincts of a bully. No wonder she’s so screwed up.”

“I wish,” Charles said acidly, “that I’d had your experience as a parent.”

“That’s about all you have had. You always hired nannies and governesses to have the experience for you.”

Felipe came in to offer coffee refills and another chance at the eggs and bacon.

Charles said, ignoring him, “You snot-nosed little bastard. I’ve put up with you for twelve years out of respect for my father. I guess you can take the kid out of the gutter but not the gutter out of the kid. Mr. Tom is moving out, Felipe. He won’t be here for dinner.”

Felipe mumbled, “Yes, sir,” poker-faced.

Charles went on, “Forget the Fargo assignment. You can just owe Mac for the rest of your life.”

Tom pushed away from his half-eaten breakfast and stood up.

“I don’t work for you, I work for Alan. He wants me to keep digging — to make sure you don’t get blindsided. Excuse me.”

14

Throttling back anger, he took his coffee cup and saucer into the library. He set them down with exaggerated care, then almost knocked them over with his elbow when he sat down in the swivel chair.

For long minutes he sat there with his eyes closed, listening to the angry roar of his own bloodstream until it began to subside. When he opened his eyes he found he was looking at the bottom of the nearest floor-to-ceiling bookcase, where the L.A. phone books were shelved.

A long shot, but worth a few minutes of his time, surely...

He went methodically through all eight directories, found one of the names he was looking for, but not the other. He made a note of the number he found and reshelved the directories. A filament of dread tangled his thoughts, kept them immobilized, going nowhere.

The phone bell was gentle as a summer shower. He snatched up the handpiece.

“McCauley residence. Tom Bell.”

“I got you some info,” Alan’s voice said.

“I looked in some phone books,” Tom said. “There’s a Mary Jane Crayle living in Malibu. Don’t know if it’s our Mary Jane, though. I was just going to call and find out.”

“Aah.” Alan was suddenly guarded. “...Okay. Are you going to tell Charles?”

“Nothing to tell him, yet.”

“Well, keep me posted. Here’s what I’ve got for you, courtesy of a librarian friend, an ex-journalist, and a couple of lawyers with long memories. First, the Palmer Clinic. Run by one Henry E. Palmer, M.D., who got closed down because of irregularities involving adoptions. Not for profit, oddly enough. Apparently he was a benevolent old coot who believed in helping people out, regardless of laws and established procedures. Details are available if we need them.

“Second, Estelle Marchand.”

“The name I didn’t find in any L.A. phone book.”

“It wasn’t even her real name. She was Anne Merchant, oldest child of a well-heeled family of Providence, Rhode Island, a teenage dropout and runaway. Anne was twenty-two when Estelle died in a motorcycle accident. Riding the back of a Harley down by the beach in San Diego, skidded on some sand, crashed, broke her neck. She and the guy who owned the ’cycle had been drinking beer all morning. That was February, nineteen seventy-four. She had evaded a determined search and stayed hidden for seven years. Identified by fingerprints. She was a high-IQ underachiever who’d been in trouble all her life, so her prints were on file. Her San Diego friends had only known her three days. Hints she may have been in trouble under a fleet of aliases all the way from Providence to Haight-Ashbury. Any help?”

“Not yet. Did Mary Jane have health insurance? Not your department, I know, but I can’t ask Charles, he’s thrown me out and wants me off the inquiry. I said I was working for you.”

“Thanks. Yes, she had health insurance. She never said why she didn’t use it — pregnancy was covered — but my guess is because it would have led us to her.”

“She was that serious about staying hidden?”

“I guess so. Watch your step, young man.”

Tom was dialing the number he’d written down when Katherine opened the door from the hall. She was still in her dressing gown. He stopped dialing.

“Still checking up on me?”

She gave him a disdainful look, stepped back, closed the door.

He dialed again. After two rings a woman’s voice answered.

“Beachfront Motel.”

“Mary Jane Crayle, please.”

“This is Mary Jane.”

Her speech was leisurely and her voice disarming, with a warmth and color that made him think of bees buzzing in pine-scented air at the edge of a sunlit wood. He struggled to hide his anxiety.

“Was Crayle your maiden name, and were you once Mary Jane McCauley?”

Was there a momentary pause?

Her voice stayed friendly, but somewhere gears had shifted.

“Yes. I went back to my maiden name after the divorce. Who am I talking to, please?”

“My name is Tom Bell. I’m a law clerk at Morgan and Scherer, Charles McCauley’s attorneys—”

“I remember them. Especially Alan. What is this about, Mr. Bell?”

“Did you ever have twins, Ms. Crayle?”

“No.”

“How about Estelle Marchand?”

Silence.

A pulse began to hammer in the hand holding the phone. Seconds dribbled by. He made the hand relax.

“What is this about, Mr. Bell?”

“A question of identity. I’d rather explain it to you in person. You can call Alan Scherer and check me out, if you like.”

“I’ll do that,” she said in the same piney, bee-buzzing voice, and surprised him by hanging up.

She knew how to sound friendly and be decisive at the same time. Well, good for Mary Jane.

He cradled the phone, reached for his coffee cup. The coffee was just cold enough to taste awful. He needed a refill.

He carried the cup into the hall, found Katherine a foot beyond the door. Still in the dressing gown, face drawn, blue eyes dark and tragic and accusing.

“How did you find her?”

She must have been listening at the door.

“I looked in the phone book,” Tom said. She stared at him in mute anguish. Her vulnerability made him profoundly uncomfortable. He added lamely, “I just need to confirm some stuff, okay?” Stuff he didn’t want to explain — especially to Katherine.

Charles came down the stairs then, passing them with no recognition for Katherine’s obvious distress. He went out the front door. Beyond the Gothic arch, the chauffeur-driven Imperial was waiting to take him to the office.

The front door closed firmly.

Tom said, “You know he’s kicked me out? If I were you, I’d leave too.” He held up his cup. “Gotta find me a refill.”

He turned away. She said to his back, in a strained near-whisper, “How dare you? How dare you?”

He went through the dining room, past the pantry, and into the kitchen, where Felipe and the cook were washing the breakfast dishes. There was no coffee, hut Felipe promised to make him some in the little two-cup drip pot. The extension phone on the kitchen wall rang harshly.

Tom grabbed it. He didn’t want Katherine intercepting any calls for him.

“McCauley residence. Tom Bell.”

“It’s Alan,” the lawyer said in his ear. “Guess who I just talked to?”

“Mary Jane,” Tom said. “Checking my references.”

“Right. I gave her a brief outline and gave you a glowing review. She agreed to see you around ten-thirty this morning, at the motel.”

“No problem.”

“Good,” Alan said, and rang off.

Tom checked his watch and went upstairs to start packing, tendrils of dread still weaving their way through his skull and around his rib cage.

15

By ten-twenty, he was driving north on Pacific Coast Highway through a stretch of California contentment marked by tackle shops, seafood restaurants, small boutiques, and no sign of poverty. On his left, between slightly eccentric houses tightly strung along the highway, he got an occasional glimpse of blue ocean with polite surf tickling the edge of a sandy beach. On the right, beyond the roadside businesses, the land sometimes rose to clifflike heights where houses enjoyed stately separation and spectacular views. Both sides of highway were money country.

Malibu, California, 90265.

A folksy-looking hand-painted sign announced NEEDHAM’S FLOWER SHOP AND NURSERY. He looked for Shannon out of the corner of his eye but didn’t see her, then Needham’s was behind him and a sign was coming up fast that said BEACHFRONT MOTEL.

The motel wasn’t very big but looked well-cared-for and confident. Standing on the ocean side of the highway, it shared a corner lot with a small restaurant and cocktail lounge. Tom eased into the center lane, waited for a break in traffic, then turned into the lot, going past the office and parking in an unmarked slot behind the restaurant.

He got out into a fresh ocean-smelling breeze, locked the car, and headed reluctantly back toward the office. Up two steps, a small white porch, a screen door on a spring. Behind it a half-glass door with a brass thumb latch, then he was in a tiny empty reception area with a registration counter, a switchboard, and a half-open door behind the counter leading into what looked like someone’s living room.

He was reaching for the bell on the counter when the door opened all the way and a woman came through it.

She saw him and stopped, a hint of anxiety in her eyes. She had to be in her mid-forties but looked younger, tall and less than fanatically slender, hair brown and done simply and about shoulder length, tan blouse, brown skirt.

“Mr. Bell, I’ll bet.” No mistaking that sunlit piney voice. He said he was. “Customers usually park right by the door. Hi, I’m Mary Jane. Alan explained about this other girl showing up, but now you’re here, I’m not sure I should talk to you.”

“I can’t make you,” Tom said, “but I can’t talk to Estelle Marchand because she died in nineteen seventy-four.”

She became very still. For a moment he thought her eyes were looking at something way back in time, but they came back to fasten on him. Thoughtfully. Carefully.

“Oh.”

Tom said mildly, “I’ve met two people who apparently knew Estelle. You, because you never asked who I was talking about, and a lady named Eileen Scott Farr. She and her husband adopted the other twin, didn’t they?”

After a moment, Mary Jane sighed. “All right.” She raised a hinged section of the counter. “Come in, we may as well be comfortable.”

He went through the counter. She lowered the hinged part and led him through the door into a small, comfortable living room. She waved him to a chair, then sat on the edge of the sofa.

Tom asked, “Are you the manager here?”

“Manager and part-owner,” Mary Jane said. “It’s what I did with the cash settlement when Chuck and I were divorced.” It was the first time Tom had ever heard Charles called Chuck. Times had changed. Charles had changed. “How did you connect me with Estelle after all this time?”

“Eileen Farr mentioned her name. Did you know Estelle’s real name was Anne Merchant?”

“No. I’m not surprised. I don’t think she ever told me the truth about anything. Look, she was a very pregnant street kid who took advantage of my sympathetic nature, okay? She said she’d run away from abusive parents and needed a place to crash until the baby was born. So I let her move in with me. She said she’d already arranged with a family to adopt the baby.”

“When was this?”

“October, nineteen seventy-three. I had this tiny one-and-a-half-room apartment in San Bernardino.”

“Did she say how old she was?”

“Seventeen.”

“She was killed in an accident in San Diego in February, nineteen seventy-four. Her fingerprints identified her as Anne Merchant, who was twenty-two and had been in trouble most of her life.”

Mary Jane made a wry face. “I believe it! It turned out the planned adoption was illegal. The adopting family had been turned down for adoption because the man’s health wasn’t too good and they were financially marginal, but there was this doctor with this clinic in Yucaipa... Well, anyway, he agreed that the baby would be registered as having been born to the adopting parents. But there was a complication: a multiple pregnancy, twins. The second baby would need a mother’s name on the record. So the little bitch borrowed someone else’s. Mine. And my husband’s. The clinic never heard of Estelle Marchand, or Anne Whozit. She was always Mary Jane McCauley to them. I found out all this when she brought the second baby back to my place. She said she couldn’t’ve used her own name without leaving a record that might lead her parents to her. So I said, hey, okay, you can stay till you get on your feet again. My God, I’d even borrowed a thousand dollars to cover her medical expenses. A thousand went further in those days. So guess what she did?”

“Lit out and left you with the baby.”

“After stealing every cent I had in the apartment. She called from a pay phone somewhere to say she wouldn’t be back, no use trying to trace her, she’d pay back the money when she could. She said I’d make a better mommie than she ever could, and hung up.

“Okay. I could’ve turned the baby over to the cops or the welfare people or someone... but I just couldn’t. It would have meant an orphanage, or foster care, or giving her to Estelle’s parents. I thought I’d at least be better than any of them.

“So I did the best I could, and in a few weeks there was Chuck, suing for divorce and custody of the baby he thought was his. I was really tom, you know? I’d had time to get really attached to Katherine. I almost asked Chuck to take me back. But he was all headlong determination. I was reckless and improvident and he’d prove it in court, so full of neurotic malice toward him I’d not even used my medical insurance, risking the life of ‘our’ child just to hide my whereabouts. Of course I hadn’t used my insurance because I’d never had a claim.

“I had this feeling that if I fought like mad I might get to keep Katherine. Isn’t there a prejudice in favor of the mother in these cases? I’d probably get hefty child support, too. But I wasn’t really the baby’s mother, and I really loathed the idea of taking Chuck’s money. And it wouldn’t be much more honest than what Estelle had done to me. And Chuck really could give Katherine things I couldn’t...”

She closed her eyes. For a moment she looked defeated. She opened her eyes and got to her feet and began to pace restlessly.

Tom said, “So you didn’t fight for custody.”

“Token resistance, that’s all. I’ve been praying ever since that I did the right thing.”

Tom said inadequately, “Katherine’s enrolled at UCLA, she’s smart, and she’s gorgeous.”

Mary Jane stopped pacing.

“...I’m so glad.” She made a vague gesture, repeated it, shook her head. She sat down again. “Is there going to be a lot of... unpleasantness about all this? Chuck so hates to be fooled. Or used to.”

“Still does,” Tom said. “Especially if anyone else knows about it. To keep that from happening, I think he’ll bury all this and pave it over.” To his astonishment he heard himself say, “Does he even have to know about it?” and felt a pang of disappointment so profound it was almost completely disorienting.

Distantly, he thought he heard her ask how they could convince Chuck the other twin wasn’t a McCauley without revealing that Katherine wasn’t one either, wouldn’t that take an impossibly high order of damage control? And he thought, Of course: he was coming unglued because he’d allowed himself to talk of damage control when what he really wanted was damage. All the talk of Mac’s wishes had been an excuse for a chance to attack Charles as a fool and a begetter of bastards, to tip Katherine off her pedestal, to get revenge for every time he’d been made to feel inferior, less than a McCauley...

Mary Jane was saying, “Couldn’t Chuck call what I did some kind of fraud?”

He fumbled his way back to the here-and-now and said slowly, “According to her birth certificate, you are Katherine’s mother. A child born to a married woman is presumptively her husband’s, even if they are living apart. No one has any reason to doubt that you are Katherine’s mother.” Except Eileen Farr? Might she know that Estelle had been expecting twins? But she would never say anything, to sustain the fiction that she was Shannon’s mother. “Add the fact that you didn’t force Charles to take responsibility for Katherine, he sought and obtained the right to do so in a court of law. I don’t think you’re in any danger.”

She said, “Do you really think we could fool Chuck?”

“I think it’s worth a try.”

“Why are you on my side all of a sudden?”

“I was never against you. I was told to learn the other kid’s parentage to make sure she wasn’t a McCauley.” He had refused to let Charles fire him off the investigation and had wound up learning more than he wanted to, and was responsible for it. “I’ve found out that the girls are the illegitimate twins of a sociopathic runaway; I hate to think I might be the cause of their ever finding it out. So I’m on your side.”

Mary Jane nodded. They heard someone come into the little lobby. “Excuse me.”

She went into the reception area. Through the once-again half-open door, Tom glimpsed a big middle-aged guy in a white shirt on the far side of the counter, and heard him say he’d need a room for three nights. Then the door to the outside opened again.

A strained female voice said, “Are you Mary Jane Crayle?”

Mary Jane said, “Yes.” The guy in the white shirt said something unintelligible. There was a shockingly loud booming explosion and Mary Jane came hurtling backward through the door as another explosion lifted half the skull from her head. She went down in a welter of blood and brain and bone fragments.

Tom was on his feet but stupid with shock, unable to move or do anything but look at the ruin of Mary Jane lying on her back, one eye staring up at the ceiling...

Then noise got through to him, yelling and struggling beyond the reception desk. He began to respond, crossing the room on shaky legs, going through the door.

On the other side of the desk the big man was holding a double-barreled shotgun out at arm’s length. The other fist had a grip on the upper arm of one of the Marchand twins, in jeans and a sweatshirt, with a blue bandanna tied over her hair. She was doing her best to fight free, pummeling and scratching and kicking her booted feet. The big man was simply too big and too powerful, and not at all gentle, though his face was slack-jawed and almost as gray as his hair. As Tom ducked under the counter to make a grab for the girl’s other arm, the big man tapped her on the head with the barrel of the shotgun.

She stopped fighting. For an instant she looked terribly surprised, then her face puckered up and she began to cry. She went limp and sank to the floor, sitting awkwardly, crying as unselfconsciously as a two-year-old.

The big man put the shotgun on the counter, looked through the door to the living room. He began to retch, clapped a hand over his mouth, and barely made it out the door.

The girl raised her hand to explore where the gun barrel had hit her, a couple of inches above the hairline.

The hand was pale and pampered.

16

From the other end of Mary Jane’s apartment came the sound of someone rattling a doorknob and pounding on an obviously locked door. The big man’s white-shirted back almost blocked the view through the half-glass door to the driveway and the parking lot. Beyond him a growing number of pale, worried people were collecting and trying to see in, and he was doing his best to dissuade them. Katherine still sat on the floor holding a hand to her head and crying. Tom picked up the phone behind the desk.

First he called the sheriff’s sub-station and reported the shooting. Then he called the Morgan-Scherer office. This time he had trouble getting through to Alan, but finally managed to. Alan came on the line irritated and peremptory.

“This had better be good.”

“It isn’t,” Tom said. “Katherine just killed Mary Jane. Shotgun, both barrels. At the Beachfront Motel, Malibu.”

Silence. Then a shocked whisper. “Killed her own mother?”

“No, but Katherine doesn’t know that. Estelle Marchand was the mother of both girls. Get on down here, will you?”

“Of course, but... Why?”

Tom shrugged, hung up.

Why was a beast. Because the McCauleys weren’t exactly unknown, speculations about why would hit the media and there’d be no hope of any damage control. Everyone would learn all the facts and deceptions. Katherine, deceived from the start, would know. Shannon would know. Katherine had shotgunned to death the only member of her “family” — supposed or otherwise — who had ever, unreservedly but too briefly, placed her first. Even Mac had sought a surrogate grandchild in Tom, and tried to find an additional granddaughter to make a co-beneficiary. And Charles, who was without love but was a skillful bean-counter, had counted her a prize among his beans, had substituted arithmetic for intuition and lavishness for generosity of heart, and had been forever unreachable to the kid locked within the polished exterior that was the armor Katherine learned to present to the world.

He heard sirens approaching from a few blocks away. He came back from behind the counter and knelt beside Katherine, who was still crying. He put an arm around her shoulders and drew her head onto his chest. No reaction, no protest; she just went on crying with an implicit trust that he wouldn’t scold her for it.

If Mac had been right, and Shannon had proved to be a McCauley, Katherine would have had a formidable competitor for Charles’s unavailable love. Mary Jane would have known if Mac was right.

So, Why? Two reasons, really.

Silence Mary Jane, and no rival sister.

Kill Mary Jane, and avenge the original betrayal, the original rejection, that had propelled her from the comforting hug of her unskilled but affectionate foster-mother to the cool efficient accounting world of her newly acquired father. Mary Jane had given her up.

Both barrels.

Katherine had quieted. She heaved a deep, ragged sigh, didn’t move or look up as outside, sirens dying, two cop cars pulled into the driveway.

File Number Eight

by Avram Davidson

As those of you who were with us in 1991 for the reprinting of the Golden Thirteen will know, an Avram Davidson story was one of the thirteen winners of the worldwide short-story contests EQMM ran between 1945 and 1956 and resumed for one year in 1961. Mr. Davidson is also a recipient of an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America and a Hugo award from the World Science Fiction Convention. From his home in Washington state, he continues to be active in both the mystery and science fiction fields, often writing pieces like the following, to which you’ll have to give a little thought...

* * *

The sign on the door said FINGERPRINTS.

Captain Luper was standing in the doorway.

The files were kept next door nowadays, in the Annex, but old Luper of course wouldn’t move and so they had to come over and check routine matters out with him.

It had been Captain Luper’s habit, as far back as anyone was able to remember, that he would stand in his doorway and ask of the world at large, “Any coffee?” The Police Officers’ Association had been known to receive complaints such as that it was not a police officer’s duty to be at some higher-up’s beck and call: but, always, someone went and got the coffee.

And now here came Sergeant Novak with one of the new men on the force. “Captain Luper.” Luper didn’t look at him. After a minute he said, “Yeah, whaddaya want?” His eyes were like oysters.

“Captain, this is Kovacs, Jerome T. for Theodore, one of the new—”

Luper turned and walked back into his office. Sitting next to the desk with the paper folded was Old Tim Flint, retired, but always coming back. Luper said, “Who you got in the third?” Tim said he liked Ranger. Luper snorted. “Ranger, Ranger. That palooka.”

“Yeah. But look who he’s racin’ against.”

Luper said, “Whaddaya want, Novak? — Kovac, Novak,” he said, pronouncing the names the same. “All the bohunks in the state tryin’ ta get on the force. What’s a matter, the coal mines close?”

Novak gave a polite little laugh. Kovacs said, “Excuse me, Captain, it’s pronounced Ko-votch.”

This time Luper looked at him. For a long while. Then he said, “You want it pronounced Ko-votch, you spell it Ko-votch. Whaddaya want—”

Novak said, very quickly, “Well. Homicide? Om. This old woman? Mrs. Fisher? Found D.O.A. in her home, 33-A Lombardy? Multiple contusions, lacerations, and—” He stopped. Luper was looking at him.

“He thinks I don’t read the reports,” Luper said.

“Oh I know you read the reports, Captain, it’s the—”

Old Tim said, “Look who he’s racin’ against. Corvette and Stamina. Corvette, I lost five on him before I retire, even. Ready for the glue factory. And Stamina, STAMina, for cry-sake, is a mudpuppy. You see any rain today, Lupe?”

Luper said, “Aaa.” He cleared his sinuses and spat in the spittoon.

“Well, they, uh, Homicide didn’t turn up nothing. Or nobody. So, om, Captain Blaine, he thinks—”

“Captain Blaine thinks. Last time Captain Blaine had a thought he took an aspirin and it went away.” Sergeant and new man didn’t say a word. Flint sighed, coughed, scratched his armpit, shook his head, shook his folded paper.

“Stamina,” Tim Flint said. “Corvette.”

In the silence a buzzing was heard. A fly thudded against the window.

“All right. The File Number Eight, then, right?”

“Right, Captain.” Novak looked slightly relieved. “They all been checked out, Captain. And, om—”

“And?”

Somewhere downstairs a drunk began a loud litany of curses. There was a slight sound. The noise stopped.

“Humpty Smith was in the hospital, Jack Garbet went to his sister’s in Cairo Illinoise last month and hasn’t come back, Larry Macmar was in Murrey’s Bowling Alley the whole night watching the turnament, Robert Smith, he—” Again the sergeant stopped abruptly.

Old Tim looked up, smiling. “Robert Alfred Smith? the smokey? Yeah? You remember his sister, Lupe.”

“Naa.”

“You don’t remember his sister, Lupe. Aaah, come on. You remember his sister, Lupe. Nanny Smith. She was at, uh, Number Four School with yune me, couple classes behind. She had a head, Nanny Smith, she had a head shape just like a lemon. Lemon-head Nanny Smith, we use ta call her.”

Novak said, “Yeah, well, she died last night, Lieutenant Flint. See. And her brother, Robert Smith, he was there the whole time with the whole family at the home. So that lets him out.”

Captain Luper took from his drawer a small packet of small cigars with plastic holders already attached to them. He took one out, then he shook his head very slightly, then he slipped it back in the box and put the box back in his drawer. “Okay, okay, who’s left?” he asked. He sounded a little bit tired.

Timmy’s face showed surprise. “Nanny Smith died? Lemon-head Nanny Smith? She died, huh. She died.” After a moment Flint said, “Rest her soul. She was at Old Number Four School, with yune me, Lupe.” Shaking his head, he slowly returned to his paper.

“And so the only one unaccounted for, and we picked him up right away and check him out and he hadn’t got no explanation of his whereabouts, like, just, like, he said, he was just, like walking around. And he didn’t see anybody and nobody saw him. So we lettum go, a course, and been keepin’ a eye on— Oh. Uh. Sorry, Captain. Stanley L. for Lewis Pine. Is the only one left in the Eight File. So, om, Captain Blaine, he—”

Luper nodded. Muscles jumped in his grey cheeks. “He thought. Yeah. Gimme the package.” For a while there was only the sound of Captain Luper’s shuffling through the records. Then he began to separate them into piles on the desk. Then he began to talk, almost to himself.

“Drunk and disorderly. Drunk and disorderly. Fourteen-year-old girl, parents changed their mind, wouldn’t press charges. Breaking and entering. Attempted assault of an officer, lawyer got him off. Bob Baimbridge, you wouldn’t believe the pull that one had. Attempted second degree A. and R., she wouldn’t press no charges, either. Complaint from old housewife on Williston Street: loitering and looking in— Nol-pros. Attempted...” His voice died away. He began to count. “—and seven. And eight,” he concluded. He shoved the records away from him. Sergeant Novak gathered them up.

“Well.” Captain Luper didn’t exactly look cheerful. But he looked more alert. “Stanley L. for Lewis Pine. That ballbreaker. He had his chances. Eight of um. You understand the procedure, Officer Kovacs.”

The new man nodded. “Yes, Captain. It’s been explained to me.”

“You got the warrant.”

They nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

A note of irritation in Captain Luper’s voice. “Well, what uh the two a ya waitin’ for. Christmas?”

“Yes, Captain. Uh, no Captain. Thanks, Captain.” The two men turned and started out. Old Tim Flint looked up and guffawed. A faint movement that served for a smile tugged at the corners of Captain Luper’s large, loose mouth. Novak clicked his tongue and gave his head a reproving jerk. Kovacs blushed.

“Well?”

Embarrassed, apologetic — “The prints. Yeah. Oh yeah, Captain. We forgot about the—”

Luper waved the sergeant’s hasty comments away. “What about the prints? Huh. New man on the force, pronounced—”

The new man said, “We pull his prints, Captain. And we go over to where the dead woman, to uh, 33-A Lombardy. And we plant them.”

Captain Luper nodded, dismissed them with an abrupt move of his hand. He pulled out his desk drawer as they left, took up the little packet of cigars once more, and once more shook his head slightly. Then he got up and moved towards the door.

“Corvette and Stamina. Uh-uh,” said Old Tim. “In the third, Lupe, I like Ranger.”

Captain Luper stood in the doorway. He stretched. Then, looking at a spot on the wall opposite, he said to the world at large, “Any coffee?”

They’ll Never Find You

by Donald Olson

If the plan proposed in this new story by Donald Olson seems an “absurd caprice” to its participants, we should point out that it is not too dissimilar to a program we know to have been part of the course work of at least one university’s Sociology department during the 1970s, though fiction in this case is still wonderfully stranger than truth...

* * *

“You do know,” said Nobbs, “how risky this could be.”

“In what way?” Bair’s coolly superior tone mocked his colleague’s timidity. They’d never been close, and now, having said their goodbyes to the director, they waited in an atmosphere of mutual disapproval for the car that would take them and three other junior staffers from the Center to the station.

Nobbs fingered the sealed envelope identical to the one Bair had been given shortly after donning the clothes they now wore and which added to their discomfiture, castoffs donated to one of the Center’s charities, but too shabby for even the neediest of the poof.

Nobbs leaned closer. “Suppose one had an accident. Got run over or hit on the head and lost one’s memory. One might never be identified. Didn’t you say you’d never been fingerprinted either? God, I feel positively naked without a wallet. No credit cards, no driver’s license, nothing.”

“But that’s the whole idea,” said Bair drily, although personally he’d rather be seen naked than in these disgraceful rags. It seemed to him an absurd caprice, this brainchild of the director’s which required each of the staff members to live anonymously and without funds (except for the five dollars each had been given) for a month, among the lowest strata of society, in a strange town, the director’s theory being that without firsthand experience of how the deprived lived, one couldn’t fully appreciate the importance of one’s work at the Center for Advanced Humanitarian Studies.

Bair had lived and worked at the Center for six months, recruited by the director himself, who had been deeply impressed by Bair’s discovery, of a formula for the processing of a vital nutrient derived from the soybean.

Bair and Nobbs didn’t exchange another word. In truth, Bair was ashamed to be seen talking to Nobbs, whose skinny physique added a note of authenticity to his rags. Bair felt confident that he himself didn’t look half so seedy to others as Nobbs looked to him. He wondered where Nobbs was being sent; they’d all been sworn to keep their individual destinations a secret. When Bair opened his own envelope, the name inside meant nothing to him; he’d never heard of Grimley, Ohio.

Not until he changed buses at Cleveland did anyone choose to share a seat with Bair, and the looks of the young man who did made a disagreeable impression on him; he wore a white leather jacket and a falsely disarming smile; his raggedy black hair reeked of oil. The bus was no sooner on the road than he asked Bair for a light, and when Bair couldn’t oblige him, he pulled a book of matches from his own pocket and, wholly unabashed, asked Bair where he was headed.

“Grimley,” said Bair.

“Same here.”

This unlikely coincidence left Bair faintly uneasy, coupled as it was with a sense of his own self drifting away. His eyes grabbed at signs and streetlights and trees as they flashed by, each seeming to pluck away a tiny particle of himself.

“So why you goin’ there, man?”

Bair’s emotions were too confused for him to project a proper show of indignation. “I have business there.”

“Me too.” He gave Bair a more intense look, squinting his dark, liquid eyes and spitting a feather of smoke into the blue-rinsed hair of the woman in front of him. “A stranger, y’know, he ain’t gonna know where the action is, y’know what I mean, pal?”

“I’m sure you’re right,” said Bair noncommittally.

“Well, buddy, I’m the boy can tell ya where the action is.”

Bair, in his innocence, preserved through forty years of a solitary, sheltered life, discerned something so authentically evil about his seat companion he was thrilled to his toes and madly eager to learn precisely what sort of “action” the youth was hinting at. He giggled nervously.

At this, the young man once more whipped out the book of matches, ripped the cover in two, and with a stubby pencil wrote on the back of one piece: Call 488-0898. Ask for Deuce. With a sly wink he handed this to Bair. Before slipping it into his pocket, Bair noticed the matchbook came from a place called the Wing-Ding Club and showed pink bubbles tumbling over the rim of a cocktail glass.

“Deuce,” said Bair. “A nickname?”

“Yeah, ’cause my last name’s Wilde. This Deuce is wild, man.”

Presently the young man got up without a parting word and walked to the front of the bus and sat down with a booted blonde who might easily have been an habitué of the Wing-Ding Club.

This enlivening encounter occupied Bair’s mind for the rest of what proved a tiresomely uneventful trip; moreover, the meeting had served to demolish any lingering illusions that he still projected the image, despite his rags, of a man of substance; he began to feel like a bum. He didn’t like the feeling at all.

They’d been given little in the way of a briefing at the Center, merely instructions to pretend they were men down on their luck. Upon reaching Grimley, Bair had expected to find a Skid Row with no lack of accommodations where one could spend the night for fifty cents or a dollar in the company of fellow unfortunates with whom he would take pains to relate and empathize, distasteful and pointless an exercise as it seemed.

To his dismay, the few people who passed on the dingy streets were fairly well-dressed and had respectable working-class faces that regarded Bair with frank distrust; he had a scary vision of wandering like this for a month, a seemingly homeless pariah. Furthermore, it was cold, and he suspected the presence of a river, for the lazy wind blowing from the east carried a faint stench of pollution, like the smell oozing out of sewer grates on cold winter nights.

Bair thought of the matchbook cover and Deuce, but doubted the youth would be interested in extending the sort of Christian hospitality he required. Staring into bar windows, he saw charming scenes of good fellowship, reminding him sadly of his companions at the Center; not that he considered for a moment entering any of these bars, fancying that some ineluctable air of superiority would invite waves of silent hostility.

He ended up spending that first night on a bench in the bus depot, and next morning greeted the bad news of his whiskery face in the rest-room mirror with dull mortification. When the restaurant opened, he slunk to a stool at the far end of the counter and ordered orange juice, bacon and eggs, toast, and coffee, knowing it was stupid to blow that much of his five bucks on his first meal, but finding it imperative to appease the glowering disapproval of the waitress.

As he was paying his bill, he looked up and caught a glimpse of Deuce through the window, or someone who looked a lot like Deuce, but when Bair reached the street there was no sign of the young man.

Bair was tempted to catch the next bus back to the Center; his return ticket was in his pocket. What a joy it would be to vent his indignation on the director for being given a ticket to a town where there were simply no down-and-outers to be down and out among. He would demand another city: New York or L.A. or even Pittsburgh, any city with a high enough level of culture and prosperity to include a sizable slum district. But what was the use? The director ruled the Center like a benevolent despot. Bair lifted his head. If this was a test, he would pass it!

He wandered into a cemetery so vast it seemed to confirm his suspicion that most of the townspeople were already dead. Beneath a sycamore tree, Bair sat down to rest on an iron bench. Unlike in the bus depot, here among the silent sleeping dead it was warmly agreeable to relax and watch the squirrels cavorting among the tombstones. If all else failed, Bair proposed to spend the coming night here.

He awoke from a snooze to spy an old man in a tattered mackinaw rummaging in a trash bin from which he rescued a handful of fairly fresh-looking flowers and ferns.

Startled when Bair rose from the bench and confronted him, the old man clung to the rim of the can as if expecting Bair to wrestle it away from him. “This’n’s mine, mister,” he growled.

“Oh, quite, quite. I don’t want it, I’m sure.” The fellow had sparked a gleam of hope in Bair’s eyes. Who but a derelict could be reduced to scavenging for flowers in trash bins, no doubt in hopes of peddling them.

Ignoring Bair, the man dipped once more into the bin, extracted a bouquet of faded plastic roses. With a savage roar he flung it to the ground, as if it represented one more trick an unkind fate had played upon him.

Once having overcome the old man’s suspicion, Bair was allowed to accompany him into town, where a woman setting up a flower stall by the First National Bank was prevailed upon to buy the derelict’s offering for fifty cents. Moments later, Bair was sharing a booth with his newfound friend in a diner under the viaduct.

Thanks to this new acquaintance, Bair soon learned to revise his opinion of there being no down-and-outers in Grimley. Although he found no trace of what might be called the respectable poor, he did discover a rummy enclave of old soaks who idled their time away in the sleazy beer joints around Fenton Square. Bair was appalled by the apparent dullness of their lives. My God, he thought, what do they do on Sundays? Yet on none of their faces did he find that look of spiritual despair he’d anticipated, but only a soft glaze of boozy detachment.

Dragging his shadow through the cheerless streets, Bair was now able to brave the stares of the respectable with a jauntily obscene leer, and one afternoon while studying the modus operandi of a panhandler working the south side of Market Street, he surrendered to a rollicking urge to try his own hand at it, but with only indifferent success.

If there was little visible evidence of grinding poverty in Grimley, neither were their obvious signs of evil. Only occasional intriguing glimpses.

In a bar so nondescript it didn’t even boast a name, a woman calling herself Alfreda Drapenheimer bawled into Bair’s captive ear the story of her exceedingly tiresome and determined fall from grace.

“Do you know Deuce?” Bair asked her while she was still sober enough to concentrate, for Bair was almost certain he’d caught another glimpse of the young man through the window of a nearby poolroom.

Alfreda favored him with the juiciest of bawdy winks. “Ah, Deuce. Do I know Deuce.”

“You do?”

“Deuce is wild.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Buy me a drink first.”

It being the happy hour, Bair bought her a twenty-five-cent draft. She lowered her voice. “That Deuce, he’s what’s called a freelancer.”

“What kind of freelancer?” Bair suspected it might have something to do with prostitution.

“Don’t ask. Don’t ask nobody about Deuce, Mr. Man. He’s got connections.”

“To what?”

The woman shrugged. “Don’t ask. Steer clear of that boy Deuce. He is bad news.”

Having spent the last of his five dollars, Bair was forced to flee from the bar an absolute pauper and none the wiser.

Later, at the Hope of the World Mission, he was obliged to listen to an endlessly dreary homily as the air became suffused with the gripping aroma of steaming soup. At one point he groaned with boredom and hunger and the man sitting beside him whispered, “What the hell, soup for a sermon. Best deal in town.”

Sleeping in the rough had grown intolerable, so that Bair was forced to bed down in the reeking dormitory upstairs in the Mission, where one morning he awoke to find that a thief had stolen his jacket and the laces out of his shoes — though not, oddly enough, the shoes themselves — as well as his return ticket to the Center. This alarming loss seemed to crystallize a vague sense of having been spied upon and followed, or was this no more than that paranoia of the dispossessed he’d once read about in some psychology text? Surely it could be only paranoid fantasy that would suggest the theft of the ticket had been some deliberate means of testing his resourcefulness.

This whole adventure seemed witless to Bair. What could it possibly prove? He’d heard of organizations holding retreats for staff members, sending them off to consciousness-raising seminars and such activities, but what could this program accomplish? It might have made sense to send him and Nobbs and the others to some drought-ridden area of Africa where the sight of the starving masses might indeed inspire them in their work. But where were the hungry in Grimley? Whatever had possessed the director to send him here of all places?

Bair himself felt starved for companionship, so acutely that he’d overcome his squeamishness about frequenting crummy bars. Venturing into one of these, he was astonished to find himself in the midst of a carnival atmosphere. The place was packed, the noise deafening. What could be the occasion? He must have said this aloud, or words to that effect, for someone yelled into his ear: “Check Day!”

Suddenly someone pinched his cheek and, recoiling with a start, he looked into the face of the Drapenheimer woman.

“Mr. Man! You look like you need cheering up.”

“I seem to have come to the right place.”

“This here’s Big Mike.”

A man not much taller than a dwarf, with shaggy ginger-colored bangs and thick glasses, offered a tiny pale hand.

“Pleased t’meetcha, friend. What’s yer game?”

“Game?”

An irresistibly compelling urge to recapture his sense of pride and dignity overcame Bair’s scruples against breaking the Director’s rules. Who was to know?

“I’m in research,” he said grandly. “Soybeans.”

The pair laughed uproariously. “What the hell are soybeans?” Alfreda asked.

“The hope of the world.”

“That’s a mission on Market Street, not a bean, pal,” said Big Mike.

“No, no. I mean they hold the secret of relieving the world’s food shortage. Think of it. No more famine in the Third World.”

Alfreda pinched him again. “You on drugs, Mr. Man?”

Bair shied away. “I’m a scientist. I developed a formula for extracting a vital nutrient from the soybean. I’ll make millions out of it.”

Bair glanced around nervously, as if the director might have been eavesdropping. The Master Brain-Picker was what they all called him behind his back. It was by draining the brains of the gifted in exchange for a picayune grant and the use of the Center’s incomparable lab facilities that the director had enriched the Center and lined his own pockets, or so it was rumored. Bair considered himself the director’s equal in cunning. When he left the Center, he would take his formula with him. What could the director do about it?

“What kind of stuff you on, pal?” teased Big Mike with a nudge and wink at Alfreda.

Bair saw the hopelessness of trying to impress these idiots. Indeed, who would believe him in his present circumstances? That fool of a director was mad. To inflict upon a person of Bair’s intellectual eminence such a degrading experience. The man didn’t deserve to profit from Bair’s genius.

Gruffly spurning the offer of a drink, Bair flung himself off the stool and headed for the door. Some impulse caused him to glance back as he was about to escape. A pair of dark, mocking eyes gazed at him from the pool table in the corner of the bar. Bair hastily looked away, pretending he hadn’t recognized Deuce.

There had been a change in the weather. It had turned warmer, although the sky was thick with clouds, costive and grey, and sad as a grieving face. Bair couldn’t stomach the prospect of another night at the Hope of the World Mission and wandered aimlessly in the direction of the river. Where the streetlights ended, he paused indecisively and was about to turn back when a figure loomed out of the shadows.

“You lost, fella?”

Bair narrowed his eyes, recognized Deuce. “You’ve been following me!”

“You looked like a lost dog back there, man. What’s wrong? You lookin’ for a place to crash? You don’t like the beds at the Mission? Or is it the company?”

“How do you know where I’ve been sleeping?”

“Where else would you go?”

“I won’t go back there,” said Bair. “I’d rather sleep in the rough.”

“No need, man. All you had to do was gimme a ring. Come on.”

“Where?”

“I know a place. You’ll love it.”

Meekly, Bair accompanied the young man back toward the town through a twist of streets and alleys to a rundown building in an area of factories and warehouses. Deuce motioned him up the steps and through a door into a dimly lighted hallway stinking of dampness and decay. Wallpaper hung in streamers from the mildewed walls. Bair followed his guide up several flights of stairs, arriving finally at a door which opened only with a vigorous kick from Deuce’s steel-toed boots.

Bair cried out, “We’re on the roof!”

“Yeah. Up above the world so high.”

Bair recoiled at the touch of something cold and sharp against his neck. Deuce’s other hand tightened around Bair’s arm. He tried to wrench free as Deuce frog-marched him toward the roofs edge.

“Why are you doing this?” cried Bair. “What do you want from me?”

“Ain’t what I want, man. I’m just a hired hand.”

“Let me go! I’m not what you think I am.” Bair, in a panic, remembered that serial killer in-some big city — was it New York? — who preyed on derelicts. “My name is Harvey Osgood Bair. I’m a scientist. You can’t do this to me. Important people know where I am. They—”

“Wrong, baby. They’ll never find you. They’ll look for you in Chicago when you don’t come back.”

“Chicago?” What madness was this?

“That’s where the Big Man will tell them he sent you. Nobody’ll think of looking for you here.”

“But this is crazy! Why?”

“Don’t ask me, man. I guess you had something they wanted.”

“The formula?”

By now they were at the edge of the roof, the knife still pressed against Bair’s neck. A cold wind chilled the sweat on his face. As he looked down, a merciful wave of giddiness swept over him. It was hardly necessary for the young man to push him over the edge.

Fed Up

by Marie E. Truitt

Detectiverse

Wifey toiled from nine to four,

Dashed on home to toil some more;

Cooking... cleaning... what a drag!

Soon she’ll be a full-blown hag.

Hubby had his own career...

Watching TV... drinking beer.

Patience worn to tissue thin,

Wifey vows to do him in.

Tired of being a good tomato,

Wifey mashed her couch potato!

Demon Lover

by Suzanne Jones

Colorado resident Suzanne Jones began writing mystery fiction in 1985. Her short tales of suspense often find the protagonists pitted not only against others, but against themselves...

* * *

Dana had forgotten the matches. She rocked back on her heels and the familiar feelings swept over her: the irritation, anxiety, self-loathing. She stared at the gas stove. How could she have forgotten the matches? How stupid of her. In her mind, she followed that twisting road down the mountain the six miles into town. She sighed and stood up from the last of the boxes she had been unpacking. There was a price for solitude. There was a price for everything. Her fingers closed on the vial of pills in her pocket, and she measured her feelings against the need for their relief. Not yet.

She thought she remembered a cabin within walking distance. She had seen a car turning into a driveway as she drove herself carefully along that steep road, looking for the place that would be her home during the summer session. She couldn’t face repeating the ordeal of that drive so soon. She would walk. It was late afternoon, but there were still too many hours between her and sleep. Besides, “Exercise is one antidote for depression.” That was her doctor, Goldman, speaking. A calm, quiet, confident voice that verged on smugness. All right. She would walk.

The air was a little cold and thin this high above the town. So clean. It pleased her to walk along the dirt road that ran along the top of a steep cliff and then between the small pines and scraggly brush, the ground beneath them still streaked with the last snow of spring. There were, besides the steady crunch of her own footsteps, the cries of birds and an occasional rustle in the brush. Not snakes, like in Texas, it was too high for them. Just some small creature, startled by her approach, as startled as she.

She saw the mailbox now with “Keller” lettered inexpertly in bold strokes on its side. Dr. Keller, she thought. She had been told the chairman of the English Department had a cabin on the mountain, a place he went to in the summers, from which he would emerge only a couple of times a week to do seminars, a place where he would work on his publications for the Modern Language Association. It wouldn’t hurt her to meet him. In fact, it was desirable. She had been accepted into the doctoral program in English, but except for her stepsister Jane, she knew no one in the department. She had been accepted largely because of James’s recommendation. James, with his clever hands and very Catholic wife and two children.

Thunderheads were starting to build over the mountain and patching the road with light and shade. There was a freshening in the air. Rain was on the way, and soon large heavy drops began to dimple the dust in the road. She hurried, reaching the front door of the cabin as it began to rain with a violence that promised to spend itself shortly. A man appeared at the door.

“Dr. Keller? I’m Dana Greystoke—”

The rain drove her against the door.

He unlatched it and pushed it open for her. He was tall and thin, late forties or early fifties, with just the appropriate amount of gray to look distinguished in his close-cut dark hair. His eyes were large and brown, and now looked at her with what she took to be irritation at her intrusion.

She glanced about the room. The fireplace was larger than the one in her cabin, and the floors were stone instead of carpeted plywood. There was a large bookcase on the wall next to the fireplace and a carton of books on the large, heavy table near the window.

She stammered through her explanation and her request for the matches. The rain hurled itself against the window.

The man dug in his jacket pocket for the matches. He was formally dressed for the mountains, she thought, even to the tastefully striped tie.

“You’re the girl from Texas, aren’t you, the one James Rollins sent us? Medieval’s your field, isn’t it?”

She nodded. She wanted to leave almost as much as he seemed to want her to, but the violent rainstorm made it almost impossible to do so. Foolish to leave and awkward to stay.

“I don’t suppose the storm will last long,” she said uncomfortably.

“No, it should blow itself out soon,” he agreed. He seemed to resign himself to having to deal with his uninvited guest. “Here, have some sherry. It’ll warm you.”

She had noticed the bottle and two glasses. “A colleague dropped this off earlier,” he said. “Let me get you a clean glass.”

He disappeared into the kitchen. She heard the sound of running water. She stuffed her hands in her pockets, curling her fingers around that vial, comforting herself. The rain pounded furiously against the window and hammered the roof. She drifted to the box of books to see what it was that he took with him to the mountains, half hoping it was something nonscholarly. She took up a slender volume, worn, old. Letters in faded gold winked up from wrinkled leather and across centuries.

“Be careful with that,” he said sharply.

Startled, she almost dropped it.

“It’s rather fragile. I suppose I shouldn’t cart them about, but they’re rather valuable, you know. I don’t like leaving them. That’s the most valuable of the lot.”

“It’s lovely,” she said, conscious of the inadequacy of the statement. She was holding in her hands a piece of time, an eighteenth-century edition of The Canterbury Tales. She had heard of Keller’s rare-book collection. James had said with a sneer that it was the most distinguished thing about him. But that was probably James’s envy and jealousy of someone more highly regarded than himself in the field.

He handed her the sherry. It was smooth and had the slightly sweet taste of nuts. She was appropriately intimidated, she thought. His rare old books, his fine wine, his disturbing masculinity.

“To curly-haired girl graduate students,” he said and raised his glass.

He seemed to relax a little with the sherry. He listed some professors at Texas whom she knew and some others whom she knew only by reputation. She wondered how much he knew about her involvement with James. That he knew something she was sure. Her little affair had certainly been noised about. Discretion was not one of James’s virtues. Nonetheless, her credentials were sound. She had done very well in the master’s program — despite James, not because of him, she knew. Sleeping with department heads was anathema to graduate careers. She had mostly escaped the consequences, largely because she had published a monograph on Chretien de Troyes, an accomplishment which was sufficiently rare among master’s candidates to distinguish her from the field, and also because her late father was a past president of the MLA. The man tactfully did not mention her father.

The rain continued. One glass of sherry became two.

The rain continued, and he built a fire.

His hands, when, finally, they were on her, came as a relief. She didn’t have to talk to him anymore, to deal with his suspected sarcasm, to have the things she said measured and judged and found shallow and wanting. Now there was only the fierce communication of flesh, which released her from the obligations and obsequious regard of their respective stations and intellects.

What terror she had first felt in James’s presence she had once confessed to him in bed, and he had laughed. “No more than age when confronted with the endless procession of youth, of bright, eager minds like cannibals come to consume the graying flesh of our intellect.”

When she came to herself, there was a stinging in her throat, then at her eyes. She was almost fully dressed, lying on the bed. And she was alone. The smoke was coming up from the bottom of the door, leaking through the sides of the door and crawling lightly up the wall.

She coughed and called his name, but there was no response. It was becoming harder to breathe, but some innate caution made her lay her hand flat against the door rather than try to open it. It was warm, and she drew back as if already burned.

More smoke came rapidly now, surging under the door. There were two windows set high and narrow in the wall at the back of the room. They were painted shut. The armchair in the room was too heavy for her to lift. Moving quickly, she tore apart the bed and seized one of the slats. She smashed one of the windows, but that seemed to pull more smoke into the room.

She climbed onto the chair and pulled herself over the bits of broken glass in the window frame and fell headfirst to the muddy ground.

At first she lay stunned, unable to move, but the fire at last had possessed the room, and the heat made her get to her knees and scuttle crablike away from the burning house into the wet trees.

She felt the impact and saw the ball of flame roil upward as though it were a solid mass before the explosion almost deafened her. She lay quietly for a time in the wet grass, an injured animal, and then became aware of the cuts stinging her arms and hands and of the long tear in her side. She got to her feet and began to walk as quickly as she could to the road.

The rain had stopped. Behind her, far down the mountain and over the ringing in her ears, she heard the faint sounds of sirens slowly building in intensity as the vehicles worked their way up the switchbacks.

She lowered herself into the deep, old-fashioned tub despite the pain and let the hot water wash the blood away. She carefully did not think now, but treated her wounds tenderly, with a consideration she seldom gave her own body. The familiar red welts on her wrists were themselves nicked, but not reopened. She was not badly hurt. The long tear in her side was shallow, little more than a scratch, and had stopped bleeding.

When she no longer could keep the memory of what had happened from her, she took one of Dr. Goldman’s pills and lay down.

Before she fell asleep she made herself think over and over again: “I did not start the fire. That was not my fault.” She carefully clung to that thought until she lost consciousness.

When she awoke, she had a panicky moment of dislocation. The unfamiliar, water-spotted ceiling, the strange room, the rough blanket she had pulled over herself against the cold night air.

Then she remembered. The memory beat at her like one of her stepsister’s insistent children, demanding her attention. She remembered.

She felt little curiosity about what had happened to the man. He was dead, or he was not. She realized that she was angry with him. He had not tried to rescue her. She had been awakened by the smoke, not by any human cry. He had either died in the fire or left her there to die. All in all, she thought it would be better if he were dead; otherwise, she would have to see him again and deal with her anger and her embarrassment. She would not go to the authorities, for what could she tell them that would be of any use? Did she know how the fire started? No. The rest was nobody’s business but her own and Keller’s.

It was still a shock to read the headline in the local paper: English Department Chairman Dies in Fire. She felt less anger toward him dead. She felt she should be generous to his memory. Perhaps he had tried to save her. Perhaps she had been mistaken, and his dying cries instead of the smoke had awakened her.

She told no one, not even her stepsister. She still could see no purpose to it. She read the report in the paper several times, and found it to be substantially correct, if a little muddled as to sequence. The article made it sound as though there had been a propane leak that had caused the explosion and fire. The fire she knew had preceded the explosion, otherwise she herself could not have survived. How the fire had actually begun was a matter of indifference to her. An accident was an accident, and dead was dead. She saw no need to set the reporter right.

She did not attend the funeral. Her stepsister Jane did and reported that it was as well attended as might be expected at the beginning of the summer term. Jane said that Keller’s sister had been there but had not seemed to grieve overmuch.

Dana herself did not grieve at all but found Keller would not disappear easily, even so. He came to the edges of her dreams, his lean, tanned face by turns mocking her and berating her for her lack of feeling. On waking in her sweaty bed, she realized that she felt as abandoned by him as she had by James. Death was the ultimate abandonment. “Seduced and abandoned.” She was embarrassed to find herself holding such an old-fashioned view of an act between consenting adults. She knew she was more troubled by these feelings than by his death. She had scarcely known him. A few hours. Some pleasure. Much pain.

She and Jane were walking with Jane’s three small children in the open-air mall the day after the funeral. It was the afternoon of a lovely, soft, cloudless day. The mall was crowded as usual with musicians, acrobats, magicians, students, tourists, and townspeople. She let herself drift mindlessly, without conscious thought, over the smooth brick pavement, absorbing the sights, and the smell of hot dogs, fried foods, and incense, and the sounds: the music of the individual street players merging in mild disharmony, the throbbing of the drums of the Hare Krishnas who had taken one street corner joyously for their own.

She thought she heard someone call her name, and she looked back into the sun, shading her eyes, and thought she saw him: a shape, a momentary interruption of the light, sensed rather than seen.

“Are you all right?” Her stepsister was looking closely at her.

She could no longer see him. He was gone. But then he could hardly have been there at all.

“A new delusion,” Dana said uneasily. “I thought I saw Dr. Keller just now.” Her fingers curved about the vial of pills, yet she made no move to extract one. She felt none of the usual symptoms: the pounding heart, the constriction of her throat, the unfocused anxiety. She did feel shaken, because she thought she had seen him, her lover. Her dead lover whose mouth had the sweet taste of sherry on it.

And he had appeared so unexpectedly. That was what puzzled her. If she alone had been responsible for his creation, this phantom, he should have arisen from the miasma of her own fears and guilt. Not on a day on which she felt so calm, a day of lazy sunshine and sensuous comfort.

“Perhaps someone you saw reminded you of Jerry Keller. You know, the way he moved. The way he carried his head,” Jane suggested.

“I hadn’t known him that well or that long,” she said. “I’d scarcely met him.”

“Well, Jerry it wasn’t. It couldn’t be,” Jane assured her. “Dead he very much is. Dental records don’t lie.” Her stepsister patted her arm and reached with the other to corral one of her brood.

Dana realized she knew almost nothing about Jerry Keller: what kind of teacher he was, what kind of music he liked, where he lived.

So she found the house where he had lived. It was a medium-sized house on a lovely tree-shaded street in the west of town near the foot of the mountain that reared itself there in a series of short sandstone cliffs. The house was painted white and had two large expanses of glass, one on each of its two stories, to look out, she supposed, on the mountain.

Impulsively she climbed the short flight of stairs to the upper entrance and knocked. She knew Keller had little family, only the one sister, but Jane said there was some student who also lived in the house.

Dana had had the student pointed out to her during a class change as he walked through the hall in the building that housed the English Department. Now he opened the door of Keller’s house.

“Yes?”

She could see the marks of grief on his face, the shadows beneath his eyes. She judged him to be about her own age, maybe a year or two younger. He was as fair as she was dark, with bright, coppery hair, clear skin, gray eyes, and a beautifully shaped mouth.

She hadn’t thought of what to say.

“I was a friend of Professor Keller’s,” she tried. “May I come in?” Her own boldness embarrassed her, and she was afraid he would refuse.

He stepped back automatically, but a little hesitantly, as if he were trying to think of some reason she should not come in.

She looked around a living room of white walls and pale carpet. The walls, she saw, were hung with modem paintings, and there were, of course, the books. Bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling, the length of one wall, flanking the fireplace of stone, which had also been painted white. There were boxes stacked in the center of the room and flowers withering on the hearth. From the funeral, she thought.

“I’m just starting to help his sister crate up his things. You just missed her, by the way. She’s gone out to get more boxes.”

She nodded. “You’re Geoffrey White. I’m Dana Greystoke. Like Tarzan,” she added, repeating the tired line.

“You’re the girl from Texas. Dr. Keller would have been your advisor.”

She decided not to offer her condolences. She didn’t know if it would be appropriate to do so.

“It must be quite a job.” She indicated the bookcase with a nod.

“I don’t mind. It’s the least I could do for her.” He frowned. “I don’t know who’ll be your advisor now. I suppose Bennett will appoint someone. He must have recovered from his fit of ecstasy over Jerry’s death by now and be flapping his way back here as fast as he can. He had just left for Italy, you know, for the summer.”

“You don’t like him?”

“Mason Bennett? He’s a complete jerk. It almost killed him when Jerry — Dr. Keller — was appointed chairman this spring, when old Haliburton retired. They tossed him the bone of Director of Graduate Studies, but it was the chair Bennett wanted. Everybody knew that. I suppose now he’ll get it. They’ve already made him acting chairman. They did that even before they tracked him down in Venice.”

She was looking at the books as he spoke and now felt a coolness touch the hairs on the back of her neck. “That’s the Chaucer.”

“Don’t touch it. It’s very old.”

There were one or two others she thought she also remembered. But there was no mistaking that particular edition of The Canterbury Tales.

“That’s impossible,” she whispered. “They should have been destroyed in the fire.”

“He hadn’t brought his books up to the cabin yet,” the boy explained. “I found them here, boxed and ready to be taken up. I guess he hadn’t gotten around to it.” He looked at her. “How do you know about his collection?”

“I’ve seen it before,” she said. “At the cabin. I was there that afternoon, the afternoon of the fire. He was unpacking these same books.”

The boy jammed his hands into his pants pockets. “You were there? Nobody told me that.”

She shrugged a little guiltily. “I didn’t tell anybody. It didn’t seem important at the time. But I know I saw these books there. I held The Canterbury Tales in my hands.”

“That’s hardly possible, as you can see for yourself,” the boy said crossly. “He always took at least these eight with him up there every summer. But they were here the day he died. I put them out on the shelves again so his sister could see them.”

She could look at them no longer. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She stumbled from the house. When she got to her car, she looked back. The boy was watching her.

She sat on her stepsister’s inexpensive couch. Books and papers littered the coffee table. Her stepsister, divorced, had a fellowship and was teaching a writing class in the evening to help support herself and her children.

One of the children approached Dana shyly with a riddle. “How can you tell if a glass is half full or half empty?”

She shook her head.

“It depends,” he said importantly, “on if you’re filling or emptying the glass. If you’re filling it, it’s half full. If you’re emptying it, it’s half empty—”

“The optimist,” his mother pointed out, eager to impart a precept, “would say it was half full, the pessimist, half empty.”

The child, suddenly bored, darted away.

“He was almost hostile,” Dana said, resuming the conversation the child had interrupted.

“Geoffrey, you mean?” Jane lit a cigarette and waved the smoke away. “Well, the rumor had him head over heels in love with Keller, and more than a little jealous. That probably explains it.”

For a moment she wondered if Keller had reciprocated the boy’s feelings, shared the attachment. She supposed he had. The boy did live with him.

“I met Keller the day of the fire up at the cabin, and I’m certain I saw those books there. Why weren’t they burned in the fire?”

“Immortal works, right?” Her stepsister chuckled. “Okay, obviously they were taken from the cabin after you saw them but before the fire started. He must have taken them back to the house after you had gone, although that really doesn’t make much sense. Whenever Keller moved, he always took the gems of the collection with him. Everybody knew that.”

There wasn’t time for him to take them back to town and then come back to die, Dana thought, but did not say so to Jane.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” she agreed.

Later that day, at the university, again without warning — she was sure she had not been thinking of him — Dana thought she saw Keller in the parking lot. She only caught a glimpse of a tall thin man, but she had the breathless certainty that it was he. By the time she could make herself follow him, he had vanished in the jumble of cars. The incident left her perplexed and uneasy. She was afraid that her grasp on reality, ever tenuous, was weakening.

She drove with her usual care up the steep mountain road, but in her eagerness to put the blackened ruin of Keller’s cabin behind her, she took the curve beyond it too quickly. When she tried to slow down, the brake pedal went all the way to the floor without any effect. As the car started to skid across the road, she panicked and turned the steering wheel hard away from the steep drop. The rear end broke free, spinning the car around, and slamming it into the side of the mountain.

She was unhurt. She had not been going very fast. She sat with her forehead against the steering wheel and tried to catch her breath and slow the beating of her heart. She got shakily out of the car to survey the damage. The left rear fender had been badly dented by the impact. The familiar self-loathing seized her. Now she had wrecked the car.

She left the car facing the wrong way, crumpled against the road-cut, and walked the distance remaining to her cabin, where she found that the telephone book was five years old, and partly as a consequence, she had to make four calls before she got someone to agree to tow the car to town. She then went back to the car to wait for the tow truck. While she waited, she wondered what would have happened if the brakes had quit on her way down the mountain.

After a long forty minutes, the man from the garage arrived with a tow truck, crawled under her car, said her brake line was damaged as well as the rear fender, and he didn’t know what else. He said he would have their mechanic call her with an estimate in the morning.

As she watched the car being towed away from her down the mountain and the shadows deepening along the road, she felt herself begin that mindless slide into the anxiety she wanted so to control. The mundane activities of contacting the garage and dealing with the tow truck operator had preoccupied her, but now she was alone again and unable to stop the conviction that was growing within her: He had tried to kill her.

Jane would now be teaching her evening class, but she had to tell someone. It occurred to her that she knew almost no one in the town. She needed to talk to someone who had known Keller. Either the dental records were wrong and he was still alive, or there was some thing that was stalking her.

“I think I saw Keller today,” she said into the telephone.

There was a silence at the other end.

“Why are you doing this?” Geoffrey asked.

She could hear the anger in the student’s voice.

“I think he must still be alive. There must have been some mistake in identifying his body. I think I have seen him twice, and he’s trying to kill me. He tampered with the brakes of my car.”

Her voice sounded high pitched and unconvincing even to her.

“There couldn’t have been any mistake. Jerry’s dead,” the boy said. “You think you’ve seen him?”

“I’ve seen someone — something — that looks like Keller. I’m not making this up. Someone did try to kill me — just now.”

She knew she was losing his willingness to believe in what she was telling him — however much he might want Keller to be alive. And what if he wasn’t alive?

“Can you come up here?” she pleaded. “I’m in the cabin just up from his, the one with the green roof. I’m afraid he’s coming after me.” She was unable to keep from adding, “What if he thinks I should have died with him in the fire?”

“Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

“Please,” she said. She did not want to be alone after dark. “I’m frightened of him — of whatever it is. You were his friend—”

“I have a cousin in the sheriff’s office. He can stop you from harassing me—”

The police. She knew with a chilling certitude that they would think her mad. But she had hoped the boy, because he loved Keller, might listen to her. And perhaps he could stop whatever it was from killing her.

“Please,” she repeated. “Please come up here. See him for yourself—”

The line was dead in her hand, but he had not hung up. Something was wrong with the telephone. She stared at it in frustration. She had to make the boy understand. He had to understand. There wasn’t anybody else.

She went to the window, turning off the light so that she could better see out into the night to where the road ran beneath the pale moon. There was no wind, and it was very still. She could hear none of the sounds that had become so familiar to her during her sleepless nights. She thought the quiet unnatural as she watched the shadows mass along the road.

She made herself concentrate. Now she was afraid of those pills in her pocket. She had to think clearly. The compromises she was making between her perceptions and those of others were breaking down. The gulf between what was real to her and what was real to others seemed to her to be widening.

Still, real things, measurable events, were occurring and would continue to occur outside her mind, regardless of her perception of them. The brakes had been damaged. That was fact: objective, verifiable reality. She had run over nothing in the car that she could remember, no curb or stone. She could think of no way the brakes could have been damaged by accident.

Had she really seen Keller? She thought she had, but that was not a fact. Suppose she hadn’t seen Keller but had seen someone who looked very much like him. But why would this someone try to kill her?

She tried to calm herself to stop the awful pounding of her heart. She really did not believe in phantoms except those of her own making, her own imagination. What she had told the boy she knew was nonsense born of her desperation. She had seen no perturbed spirit. This was a creature capable of physical acts. A man then. A man who must have a very practical reason for wanting her dead.

She thought of the riddle. When is a box half empty or half full?

Then she knew. He had not been unpacking those books as she had assumed. He had been packing them.

There was a sound at the back of the house as the glass in the door gave way.

She could identify him. And she was bound to see him again. And again.

“I read somewhere that killing a person was far easier than killing a duck. I have not found it so.”

He switched on the lamp at the desk. It lit his face from below, distorting the fine cheekbones and throwing his eyes into shadow. “You’re hard to kill. Not like Keller. He was easy.”

She was almost relieved to see him, proving to herself that he was real and not some spectre of her mind. “You couldn’t bear to burn the books, could you? Dr. Bennett, isn’t it?”

“I’m not a thief or a vandal,” he said mildly. “Those books are irreplaceable. After I set the fire, I used Keller’s keys to let myself into his house in town and left them there on my way to the airport.” He stepped closer. In the light from the lamp she could see the old-fashioned straight razor in his hand.

“I thought you’d died in the fire, my dear. You should have, but when I returned from Italy, I discovered they had found only Keller’s body in the ashes. You were the only one who knew I was there that afternoon. Fortunately, you naturally assumed I was Keller. His body was in the other bedroom. Poor timing, my dear.” He smiled sadly, she thought. “You wouldn’t think you’d be so hard to kill...”

She felt a perverse pride in that, and it was that pride that impelled her past him.

He seized her before she could reach the door. He caught her about the waist and swung her toward the bathroom.

“No, don’t!” he said. “Let me ease you into that Good Night.” His mouth was close to her ear. “You wanted it once — I have seen your wrists—”

“No!” she cried. She hadn’t meant it. They all told her she hadn’t meant it. They told her that the serious ones cut the tendons. The really serious ones make their slashes lengthwise and to the bone.

She felt the blade, the cold, the sting, and the bite of it as he drew it across her wrist.

He forced her to her knees with the weight of his body, over the edge of the old-fashioned tub.

His hands were slippery with her blood as he grappled with her. He was too strong for her, but she fought on stubbornly, unwilling to make it easy for him. She felt the blade slide across her other wrist, and she groaned, and then screamed at him.

She heard the door splinter open, and she had a chance to glimpse Geoffrey’s pale face, and then there were others, and hands upon her, lifting her and binding her wounds.

After a time she lay again in a white, orderly place. The nurses came and went on rubber soles, but clattered dishes and trays and dropped enough things to assure her that they at least thought that she would remain among the living.

In the night, when they moved like aquarium fish through green light, she allowed herself to think of her demon lover. She felt only a little anger now, and something akin to pity for the waste of so much knowledge lacking in wisdom. Then she found herself thinking of James, but not with so much pain. It was as though she were merely bruised now and even that was healing. The intense feelings of shame and loss were lessening, fading. In their place was a little sadness, which, as she thought on it, seemed more like peace.

Bly-Bugh

by Katherine H. Brooks

Detectiverse

You call me “Evil Captain Bligh.”

Don’t dump me, I implore!

The salty brine that chills my spine

blows many miles from shore!

A crew should never mutiny.

Your leader — do you hear?

Is making hasty plans to be

the Captain of the Year!

I’ll give you extra rations, men.

I’ll lay aside the whip.

You’ll never walk the plank again.

We’ll sail a jolly ship!

I’ll grant you hours of leisure sport,

with grog in every jug,

And women when you get to port,

and gold and gifts and—

G

L

U

G

The Inheritance

by Betty Rowlands

Though we have already published two short stories by Betty Rowlands, we include now her first work of fiction, a story that won the Sunday Express-Veuve Cliquot short story contest in 1988, and was published that year in the U. K...

* * *

It was a perfect summer afternoon in rural England. Birds sang, roses bloomed, couples sipped champagne and strolled beneath stately trees; well-bred laughter echoed across velvet lawns. Outwardly, the scene was idyllic, but to Nicholas, leaning on the parapet of the stone-flagged terrace overlooked by the magnificent southern facade of Lensbury Court, the all-pervading sense of opulence was as acid eating into the soul. By rights, he thought gloomily, he should be the owner of a property such as this. And as he brooded on his own dismal financial situation, there formed in his mind a simple proposition: since Great-Aunt Honoria was the sole obstacle between him and his inheritance, Great-Aunt Honoria would have to go.

Honoria Stacey’s industrialist husband had bequeathed her a vast fortune. Now eighty-five and in frail health, she spent most of her time in her rambling mansion flat in West London, attended by McPhee, a dour Scotswoman who had been her companion for many years. Nicholas was her sole surviving relative but, sadly, she had never shown him any particular affection. On the contrary, she was contemptuous of his lifestyle and scathing about his disinclination for work. For his part, however, he prided himself on his tolerant nature. He bore no malice. From the moment he learned of the untimely demise of his one remaining second cousin, he devoted himself heart and soul to the welfare of his elderly kinswoman.

It was disappointing that his attentions were so little appreciated. Despite his frequent visits and assurances of devotion, to say nothing of money that he could ill afford spent on flowers and chocolates, Honoria treated him with a blend of suspicion and parsimony. None of his hints about the inadequacy of his means evoked so much as an offer to pay for the taxi that brought him regularly to her door. Still, when she was in a good mood, she let it be known that she accepted him, albeit reluctantly, as her natural heir.

While his fellow guests drifted and gossiped around him, Nicholas considered possible ways of disposing of Great-Aunt Honoria. He might beat in her brains with a blunt instrument. There had been a number of reports in the press recently of elderly people being attacked in their homes and robbed of their possessions. If he were to ransack the place and pinch a few things it would seem like burglary — but the noise would inevitably bring the cat-eared McPhee rushing to the scene and he’d be caught red-handed. His stomach turned over at the unintended double meaning; he always became queasy at the sight, or even the thought, of bloodshed.

Strangulation seemed on first consideration to be a distinct possibility. He visualized his hands locked round Great-Aunt Honoria’s stringy throat and the sensation was not unpleasant. He dwelt on it for a while before dismissing the idea as impractical. Despite her age and her dicky heart — her doctor was always warning him that she might pop off at any minute and he had been living in hopes for some considerable time — Honoria was a spirited old bird, quite capable of putting up a struggle and bringing McPhee flying to the rescue. Suffocation with a pillow in her sleep? That would mean being a house guest, and since she never invited him to spend a night under her roof, smothering would also seem to be out.

Shooting he dismissed without a thought. He had no gun and in any case firearms terrified him. Also, there would be the same problems with noise and blood that had made him reject the blunt instrument. It was all very difficult.

“More champagne, sir?” A waiter was tilting a bottle above Nicholas’s empty glass. “Sir Wilfred will shortly be proposing the toast.”

Nicholas took a long swig of the cool, dry wine. That was good. The fellow had said something about a toast — what was the occasion? Ah, yes, Emma Lensbury’s birthday. He hardly knew the girl, but he’d been invited as a friend of a friend. A crowd of them had been driven down in a specially chartered minibus that morning, which was just as well as he’d never have made it on his own. He’d spent most of the journey with his eyes closed, still a bit hung over from the previous evening. A pity; he wasn’t really doing justice to a first-rate vintage champagne.

It was while he was contemplating the dancing bubbles in his glass that he found inspiration. Poison! On his next visit to Great-Aunt Honoria he would take a bottle of her favourite wine and slip in a dose of something lethal. It would, of course, have to be tasteless, without smell, and completely invisible. Almost immediately, however, his brain hit another snag. He knew hardly anything about poisons. Ratsbane and weed-killers, so he’d read somewhere, had painful and protracted effects on their victims. Apart from the off-chance that if Honoria were taken violently ill she would be rushed to hospital, where there was a good chance of her being resuscitated, he didn’t like to think of the old trout writhing in agony. He had a certain grudging admiration for her and he would prefer her end to be peaceful — but he’d like it to be soon.

He caught the waiter’s eye and got another refill. His brain always worked better after a few drinks. His host, in a rambling and interminable speech, was urging the company to wish his little girl a happy birthday. Nicholas applauded and hear-heared with everyone else. He drained his glass and held it out for more.

The solution to his problem came in a flash. Sitting in the bathroom cupboard in his London flat was a small bottle of something a medical student pal had given him long ago when a favourite dog was dying. He couldn’t go to the vet because he already owed him a packet, so his pal managed to get hold of something that could be administered in milk. Old Rex would just drop off to sleep and never know a thing, the chap had promised. As it had happened, Rex had died naturally that very day and the bottle was never opened. Once or twice, Nicholas recalled, he’d thought about chucking it out or giving it back, but somehow he never had. Now he knew why. Fate had intended it for Great-Aunt Honoria.

Back at home, Nicholas rummaged in the bathroom cabinet. The bottle of poison was still there, hidden away behind half-empty containers of aftershave and toothpaste. He uncorked it and gingerly sniffed at the contents. There was no smell. He tipped a few grains of the white powder into his palm and considered checking it for taste but decided against. There was no point in making himself ill; he’d been assured that Rover wouldn’t detect it, and a dog’s sense of taste was bound to be more acute than that of an elderly woman. He’d have to take a chance on that.

Introducing the poison into Honoria’s wineglass was going to be difficult. Nicholas spent hours practicing with a similar bottle filled with table salt, trying to uncork and empty it one-handed in a single, deft movement. It was tricky but he persevered. He also rehearsed what he would say to her, what excuse he would offer for suddenly turning up with a bottle of her favourite wine. It wasn’t something he was in the habit of doing — for one thing, her tastes were too expensive. She might suspect his motives if he wasn’t very careful; she had that sort of mind.

At last, confident that he had thought of everything, Nicholas set out on his final, fateful visit. McPhee, unsmiling as ever, ushered him into the stuffy sitting room where Honoria was sitting in her high-backed chair, a wizened, sharp-featured doll who accepted his kiss unemotionally and jabbed with her stick at the holdall he was carrying.

“What have you got there?” she demanded in the thin, throaty voice that reminded him of crackling brown paper.

“A very special treat for a very special aunt.” He pretended not to notice her scornful grimace as he took out two delicate, long-stemmed wineglasses, carefully wrapped in tea towels.

“Found these in the Portobello Road. Nice, aren’t they? I thought we’d christen them together — I know you enjoy a tipple!”

“I hope it’s better than some of the stuff you’ve brought in the past,” sniffed Honoria. “In spite of the quantity you tip down your throat, you’ve never learned how to recognise a good vintage.”

Nicholas winced. Another dig at his lifestyle. Any minute now there’d be some reference to his extravagance and lack of gainful employment. Well, he’d show her. If he couldn’t earn a living, at least he could organise a dying.

Aloud, he said, “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at this one.” He unveiled the bottle and displayed it with a flourish.

Honoria scrutinised the label, slit-eyed. “Not a very good year,” she commented. “Anyway, we’ll give it a try.”

Nicholas went to the sideboard and uncorked the bottle. He poured some wine into each glass and handed one to his aunt, setting the other down on the small table beside her chair. He went back to fetch the olives. He’d remembered just in time that she always declared she couldn’t enjoy a drink without them.

Honoria held her glass against the light, head tilted, lips pursed. She sniffed the contents, nose delicately wrinkled as if reluctant to register approval. Nicholas raised his own glass.

“Cheers!” he said, and drank. He considered for a moment, frowning. “I’m afraid you’re right — it wasn’t a terribly good year,” he admitted grudgingly. He held his breath as his aunt rolled a mouthful round her tongue and, after what seemed an eternity, swallowed. She repeated the exercise; to his surprise, she nodded in approval.

“That’s where you’re wrong!” she declared. “It’s better than I expected. You’ve got something right for once!” She began to tackle the olives, looking almost good-humoured.

“Oh well, you know more about these things than I do,” said Nicholas ingratiatingly. Perverse old cow, he thought, she always contradicted him and he had to play the creep and go along with her. Still, he might as well keep it up till the end. He wondered how long it would take. He emptied his own glass and fetched the bottle. “A spot more?”

She nodded, still gobbling olives. As he poured, he glanced over his shoulder at her. She was smiling, something she seldom did in his presence. It was an unpleasant smile and he felt uneasy as he sat down again.

His second glass tasted better. Last night’s bender must have jaded his palate. That, and a certain nervousness. Normally, in spite of his aunt’s jibes, he could tell a decent wine from a dud one. This wasn’t bad after all. He tossed it back.

Honoria was still smiling. He wished she wouldn’t; it wasn’t like her.

“I’m glad you came today,” she said, holding out her glass.

Nicholas beamed and poured generous refills. “It’s always a pleasure to come and see you, dear Aunt!”

“Rubbish!” She bared her teeth, like a terrier about to snap. “You don’t care a fig for me — you’re simply after my money!”

Nicholas jumped at the unexpected attack and his glass slipped from his fingers. He grovelled under the table to retrieve it and emerged flushed and panting.

“Clumsy fool!” sniffed Honoria. “Ring for McPhee to come and mop up.”

“No, it’s all right, I can do it.” He went down on all fours and scrubbed frantically at the carpet with his handkerchief. The last thing he wanted at this moment was the presence of a third party. “There, it’s all right now, no stain at all... good job it’s white and not red...” He scrambled to his feet and grabbed at the back of his chair, conscious that he wasn’t feeling quite himself. His heart was thumping and his head swimming.

Honoria gave one of her cackling laughs. “Didn’t like that, did we?”

“That wasn’t fair, Aunt Honoria,” he protested. “You shouldn’t say things like that, even in fun.”

“I wasn’t speaking in fun. It’s the plain truth and you know it.”

“No, really...”He put a finger inside his collar and waggled his head, trying to clear it. “Could we have some air, it’s getting awfully close in here.” Without waiting for permission, he went to the window, opened it, and took a couple of deep breaths. He had some difficulty in getting back to his chair. Shouldn’t drink so fast, he told himself unhappily. Especially after last night. Too many benders lately.

“I thought you should know,” Honoria continued, “that I have disinherited you. If I were to leave you my money you’d only squander it, so I’ve made a new will. I’m leaving an annuity to McPhee and the rest will go to charity.” Her eyes sparkled with malicious glee as he gaped at her, dumbfounded. “So you see,” she went on, “you’ve been to all this trouble for nothing.”

Nicholas was devastated. Had all his careful scheming been a waste of time? “I don’t understand,” he faltered. “What do you mean — what trouble?”

“Poisoning my wine,” said Honoria calmly, taking the last olive.

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” said Nicholas, trying to sound indignant. He passed a hand over his eyes. The old witch! She’d rumbled him!

Well, he wasn’t sorry. Even if he wasn’t getting her money, she deserved what was coming to her after being so stingy towards him all these years. Not that he was going to give her the satisfaction of owning up. He rose from his chair, swaying slightly.

“I’m leaving,” he declared. “Next time we meet I shall expect an apolly... an apology!”

“Next time we meet — that’s a g-good one!” cackled Honoria, sounding as tipsy as he felt.

A sudden dart of logic pierced the confusion in his head. “If you thought I’d spiked your wine, you wouldn’t have drunk it!” he said triumphantly.

Honoria leaned forward in her chair. With her shrivelled, blue-veined hands she lifted the two empty wineglasses from the table, switched their positions, and set them down again. “But I didn’t drink it.” Her voice was a soft growl, like a cat with a mouse. “You did.”

“Good God!” croaked Nicholas. “When did you...?”

K. K

by Liza Cody

A painter by training, Liza Cody began her fiction writing career during a particularly cold winter when her studio was too cold to use. Perched in front of the fire, she produced, in longhand, the first book of the Anna Lee mystery series, a book that won the John Creasey Memorial Prize in Britain, and received an Edgar nomination from the Mystery Writers of America. Five further Anna Lee novels followed, all critically acclaimed. The story with which Liza Cody makes her debut for us is as distinguished as her longer fiction. It was written in 1988 and is currently being produced for BBC radio, but has never before been published in this country...

* * *

Let me tell you something: on a hot day at Fantasy land life can be hell for King Kong. You have to wear long johns for the itching, and by the end of the day they’re soaked. I lost pounds on sunny days. Not that it showed. A woman my size has to lose stones for it to make any real difference.

I’m not complaining. If you take all the facts into consideration, I was lucky to have the job. The facts, of course, are my face and figure.

I was always going to be tall. When the accident happened I was thirteen years old and already five foot ten.

It’s no handicap to be tall. There are plenty of models and basketball players over six feet. But after the accident I began to eat, for comfort really, and you can’t comfort yourself to the extent I did without putting on a lot of weight.

King Kong, at the beginning, was supposed to be a man. But I got the job because I was the only one who fitted the costume. King Kong is a star. I hadn’t even applied for King Kong. No, my hopes were pinned on Hettie Hamburger, one of the cafeteria troupe. But at the last moment, only a couple of days before the grand opening, they switched me with Louis.

Louis, they said, was a little too limp to make a convincing King Kong. “All the rehearsal in the world won’t turn that nancy into a plausible monster,” the artistic director said. They think just because they can’t see our faces we can’t hear what’s said about us. But we can.

“What’s that hulking great hamburger doing at the end of the line?” he said, when he came to inspect the cafeteria. “You can’t have a threatening hamburger. It’ll put the kiddies off their food.”

I thought it was the end for me. If you fail as a hamburger there’s not a lot of hope left. But the artistic director, thank heaven, had a little imagination. “See if she can get into K. K.,” he said.

I could. “Terrific,” the artistic director said. “Dynamite. Put her by the gate for the opening. She’s a natural.”

We opened very successfully, with me and the Creature from the Black Lagoon welcoming the crowds. The kiddies screamed and giggled as I lolloped around growling. They wanted to stroke my fur and have their pictures taken with me.

I can’t tell you how lovely this is for someone like me. Without a monster costume no one wants to take my picture at all, and the kiddies cross the road rather than come face to face with me on the pavement. I love kiddies, but I’ve got to be realistic. It’s unlikely I’ll ever have any of my own. Children are frightened by disfigurement and it’s one of life’s little ironies that they have only come to love me now that it’s my job to frighten them. I’m a wonderful monster, if I do say it myself. Who would have thought that someone like me could succeed in show business?

But it isn’t like that for everyone. My friend Cherry, for instance, used to get very depressed. “I’m a dancer,” she used to tell me. “A good dancer. Well, quite a good dancer. Not a bloody hot dog. It’s an insult, even if I am over thirty.”

She’s over forty, actually, but she’s right: she’s still very pretty in spite of being a little on the plump side. It’s a shame to hide her in a hot dog.

“I’ll give that agent of mine a piece of my mind,” she used to say, “you see if I don’t.” Well, maybe she did or maybe she didn’t. The only thing I know is that two years later she’s still a hot dog, and a good one at that. She says the tips are getting better all the time. She doesn’t positively enjoy the job the way I did, but she doesn’t complain much anymore.

Performers at Fantasyland divide up quite neatly into Freaks and Food, and I think it’s fair to say that of the two, the Freaks are happier in their work. They are the entertainers and the extroverts.

But they are quite territorially minded, too. I had a jungle, about half an acre of mixed conifers and rhododendron bushes with a climbing frame artfully disguised as creeping vines. You wouldn’t catch Godzilla in my domain. He roams the area around the gift shop, while the boating pool belongs to the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.

Of course, some of the Freaks work in teams. The Tingle-Trail is a miniature railway ride which begins in the Black Forest with the Werewolves in their various stages of transformation and ends in a graveyard with a stunning display by the Zombies, the Undead, and a pair of Bodysnatchers. There are twenty-three employed on the Tingle-Trail alone, and they have to work to a strict timetable.

The others give improvised performances. We all perfected the art of lurking and popping up unexpectedly. It is a delicate balance: shrieks of shock and surprise are the signs of a job well done, but you don’t want to scare anyone into a heart attack. There have been accidents, and we learned to watch out, especially for grandparents. The kiddies are pretty resilient; they want to be terrified. But the grandparents can be rather more fragile.

Although we rarely witnessed each other’s performances, there was a lot of respect around for the way each of us coped with our working conditions. I’d say, for instance, that the Mummy had the most difficult job. The Egyptian Tomb is a maze and a maze is claustrophobic. The Mummy was one of those men who could make something out of nothing. He stayed very still, and when he moved it was almost imperceptible. It was as if he was playing Grandmother’s Footsteps with his audience. He terrified his visitors slowly and subtly and I must say that of all of us, he was the one I admired most.

Mummy used to sing with the Scottish Opera until asthma ruined his career. He was an enormous man, but unlike me he did not work out with weights. He didn’t have to: physical strength was not part of his act. Timing was his forte. I wish I had seen him on stage — with that size and presence, coupled with his sense of timing, he must have been quite electric. Mummy was an artist and an outstandingly gentle person, so we all felt his humiliation personally.

It happened late one June evening. The ticket office had been closed for an hour and the last visitors were trickling away. I had come down from my climbing frame and was beginning to make my way over to the dressing room when a pack of teenage boys burst out of the Egyptian Tomb and chased each other to the exit. I noticed with alarm that one of them was waving a piece of burning cloth.

Fire is something we were all trained to look out for, and my first thought was that a member of the public might be trapped in the maze. I rushed in, calling for the attendant to turn on the house lights. I did not know the tomb very well and I could not waste time running around in the dark searching for a fire extinguisher.

I found Mummy on his back, his costume slashed and his feet smouldering. Smoke and shock had caused an asthma attack. He was in a bad way.

I put the fire out immediately. But it was difficult to get his head-piece off. I had to free my own hands first. My King Kong costume is not designed for dainty work and I wear huge furry gauntlets. We were in a confined space and Mummy is a big man, but I managed at last. His lips were turning mauve.

An asthmatic finds it difficult to breathe lying down. I should have propped him up straightaway. But his costume was stiff and bulky. Luckily an attendant arrived and together we managed to pull apart the intricate system of Velcro and zips that held it together.

Mummy was not badly hurt. His feet were scorched and that was about all. But I could not help thinking about what it must have been like for him trapped in his own tomb, imprisoned in his winding sheet.

The costume had been the provocation. Apparently the boys had wanted to unwrap Mummy. They had become angry and violent when they found they couldn’t.

As I say, what we all felt most keenly was the humiliation. Nosferatu put it best. “It’s the role reversal,” he said. “They aren’t supposed to frighten us. We’re supposed to frighten them.”

That made me think. “But it’s all an illusion,” I said.

“That’s right, K. K.,” said Nosferatu. “It’s all in their minds that we can frighten them, so they give us the power to frighten them. Once they stop playing their parts we can’t play ours, and shebang! — it’s all over.”

It was a conversation I kept remembering in the days that followed. A local newspaper got hold of Mummy’s story and from that time on our public seemed to change.

For one thing, there weren’t so many little kiddies. I suppose the parents and grandparents were afraid of exposing them to hooligans. And there were definitely more hooligans. Incident followed incident. Charley, the Fly, had his wings torn off. Godzilla’s tail was hacked to pieces with carpet knives. A gang of youths tried to electrocute the Bride of Frankenstein. We were being persecuted.

How strange, I thought. Because when you go back to most of the original stories, we monsters only became monstrous to defend ourselves against human persecution. King Kong is a good example. Kong was only trying to defend the tiny creature he loved and that’s why a lot of people leave the movie feeling sorry for him. This is because King Kong is not a horror film. It is a romance. Not many people understand that. But they feel it. And it was always an important aspect of my characterisation to combine King Kong’s raw power with tenderness. It wasn’t difficult: I think I’ve mentioned already that I love little kiddies.

No one could call Cherry the motherly type, but even she missed the children. “I don’t know, K.,” she said. “If I’ve got to be laughed at, I’d rather it was the little ones than these spotty jerks. They just don’t know how to have a good time without hurting someone.”

How right she was. Again, it happened in the evening. They came, five of them, just as my last visitors were leaving. They had hair so short you could see the tattoos on their skulls, and their trousers were tucked into army boots.

They ran in, beating down the rhododendrons with their sticks, yelling, “Where’s the freaking monkey?”

I stayed where I was on the climbing frame. I hoped my little family would escape quietly and go for help. But they stood there transfixed. There were three small children, I remember, all under seven. Their mother was with them, and the old man was probably her father. Very sweet, they had been, taking pictures of me holding the smallest child with the two older ones on either side. I didn’t want them to come to any harm.

Fortunately the hooligans hardly noticed them. They clubbed the base of the climbing frame with their sticks. They tried to shake me off.

“Hoo-hoo-hoo!” they screamed. “Come down and we’ll give you some nuts.” I didn’t move. They could shake that frame all night and it wouldn’t budge.

“We’ll give it some nuts all right,” they said. “If it won’t get down and fight like a monkey, we’ll drag it down.”

They swarmed up my frame. They swung on my ropes. I went from level to level to avoid them. If only the family had gone for help — if only the hooligans had been stupid — I might have got away with it.

But it only takes one with a bit of intelligence to organise the other four into a dangerous unit. He was small. He was neat. He had clear blue eyes that blazed with excitement. He was one of those lads who love a challenge. My agility on the climbing frame was a challenge. It became a competition he wanted to win.

He set three of them to drive me to the edge of the frame. The other he put on a rope. As I prepared to haul myself up to the next level, he sprung his trap.

“Now!” he screamed.

The lad on the rope swung. I saw him. coming but there was nowhere to go. He hit me like an iron pendulum and I flew off the frame and went crashing to the ground. The others dropped on me. I thought my back was broken.

They sorted themselves out soon enough. “Let’s see the bastard,” the leader said. “Get his freaking mask off.”

They tore King Kong’s face off mine and threw it into the bushes.

“Christ!” they said. “Bloody hell! Look at that.”

The little children, who up till then had only been crying, started to scream.

I can hardly bear to remember what happened, next. I suppose it reminds me too painfully of the past. You see, after the accident, after my face healed, my mother decided that it would be best for me to have plastic surgery to put things right. So I went back into hospital where they broke my cheekbones again and tried to rearrange my eye socket. But something went wrong. It does sometimes. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Maybe I rejected my own tissue.

My mother had begun hopefully but after the failure it became harder and harder for the doctors to comfort her. In the end, she took my little sister and went north to Scotland and I never saw her again. It was a relief in a way. Because as she became unable to stand the sight of my face, I became unable to stand the sight of hers. Well, not her face, exactly, more the expression on it. I don’t have to look at myself, but I do have to look at the people who are looking at me. I know I am a fright, and when people look at me they become ugly too.

The last line in the movie King Kong is: “ ’Twas beauty killed the beast.” Well, in my experience, it’s the other way round. When even the prettiest people look at me they become horrible, so the beast kills beauty.

The little kiddies screamed.

The lad with the clear blue eyes said, “God! No wonder it wears a monkey suit.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here before I throw up.”

I got up. I couldn’t find my mask. I took off my gauntlets. I hit him on the side of his handsome head, and when he was down I dropped on his throat with all my weight.

You know, sometimes you find a piece of backbone in a tin of salmon, and when you get it between your teeth it breaks with a soft crunching sound. It was as easy as that.

I shouldn’t have done it. I was bigger than him. He was only a kid really — not a child anymore but not grown-up either. But at the time it seemed to me he had taken away everything that was mine. All I had was an illusion anyway — the illusion of being a monster. You can’t kill someone for that. It just isn’t enough.

The funny thing is how nice everyone was about it — even the police. “I understand,” everyone kept saying. They look at my face and they say, “I understand,” as if my face tells them everything, as if a disfigured face clearly explains an ugly action. Even the doctors, who are educated men and should know better, think it was years of taunts and rejection that drove me to murder. My solicitor tells me he’s sure the court will accept a plea of self-defence. “They’ll understand,” he says confidently.

What if I tell the court I just lost my temper? Suppose I tell them, as I’m telling you, that my face doesn’t represent me any more than yours does you? My face is an accident, but I am responsible for my actions. A sad life and an ugly face do not make me any less responsible for losing my temper, do they?

Perhaps they really think I’m King Kong, that I’m not quite human. Just as they feel sorry for King Kong, because although he’s a monster he seems to feel human emotions, so they feel sorry for me. If they really thought I was human they’d deal with me the same way they dealt with that man who murdered his girlfriend last month because she threw a plate of baked beans in his face. They don’t tell him they understand.

But look on the bright side. Fantasyland has a new regulation now and teenagers are not allowed in unless accompanied by a little child. Apart from that, Cherry says it’s business as usual. She says it’s not the same without me though, and she doesn’t think the man who took over my job will last the summer.

“He complains like anything on sunny days,” she told me last time she visited. “He’s got eczema and the itching drives him crazy.”

Cherry should know. Life can be hell for a hot dog, too, on a sunny day. You don’t have to be King Kong to suffer.

Carlotta Green

by Alan K. Young

Detectiverse

Carlotta Green was the office whiz at Nabor, Boyle & Grind,

A firm of three male lawyers with one chauvinistic mind.

She typed their briefs, soothed client beefs, filed mail and sent out faxes,

She brewed their coffee, kept their books — she even did their taxes!

In Lotta Green, the partners knew, they’d truly found a pearl

And so were always fulsome in their praises for “our girl,”

Except when bonuses were due or other plums numerical,

When Lotta’s role was understood as being “strictly clerical.”

Thus made aware that no one else would fend for “li’l ol’ me,”

Carlotta used her expertise to found a company:

As president of “Lilolme, Inc.,” she bogus bills submitted,

Which as bookkeeper for the partnership she efficiently remitted.

For 20 years she kept their books, for 20 years she cooked them,

Chuckling at “the silly sheep” as she routinely rooked them.

And then one day she’d had enough (of slavery and of plunder)

And so retired abruptly on a red-eye flight Down Under.

Today she basks beside the pool at a South Pacific spa,

Beyond the sound of dictaphones, beyond the reach of law.

A waving palm, a gentle breeze, an ice cold gin and tonic,

You’d think our Lotta had it all, and yet — oh twist ironic!—

Her world is far from paradise beneath that tropic sun;

Without her foolish flock to fleece, Carlotta’s shorn of fun.

Evelyn Lying There

by Anne Wingate

The authenticity of Anne Wingate’s police stories is a legacy of the seven years she herself spent in law enforcement before taking a PhD. in English literature and pursuing her dual career as professor and writer. The author now lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and four children...

* * *

When you see an FBI agent and two detectives coming in the door of the police station, you figure they’re working on something.

At least, I did, and I said, “Hi, Steve.”

For a minute he looked as if he didn’t even recognize me — no wonder, in this dumb uniform, and after all, I knew he was here but he didn’t know I was here. He’d had no reason to know. But it had only been seven months, and after a moment his eyes focused on me and he said, “Lorene?”

Then he stopped, so suddenly one of the detectives bumped into him, and said, “Are you working here now?”

I started to say yes, but before I quite got the words out one of the detectives growled, “Come on, Hallett,” which didn’t sound too friendly to me, and Steve and the detectives went on.

I headed for the master room to sort out my paperwork, angry tears stinging the back of my eyes. Seven months ago I could have said, “What’ve you got?” and he’d have told me and we’d have talked it over. Or, more likely, he’d have said, “Lorene, come help me with this, would you?”

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, and no use reminding myself that life isn’t usually. Then I’d been a detective myself, four hundred miles away, but Allen had been transferred, and after all, I was Allen’s wife even if I was beginning, off and on, to wonder if I really wanted to be. So I’d come here, too, and started over as a rookie in this two-bit department, doing routine door-shaking and writing parking tickets, because I was the first female officer this small town had had and they didn’t know what to do with me, never mind that it had been eight years since I’d written a parking ticket or shaken a door.

And to really top things off, Allen and I wound up divorced after all and he’d gone off somewhere else, leaving me stuck here with this Mickey Mouse job and no way at all to go home and no use anyway, they’d filled my slot by now.

And Steve... well, if he hadn’t been married, it would have been very nice to know Steve was here, because let’s face it, he’s an interesting guy, but he was most thoroughly married and the FBI frowns on its agents playing around.

So I went on sorting parking tickets, and never mind the tears in my eyes. Policemen can cry in uniform if they want to. Policewomen can’t.

“Lorene?”

“Sir?” I answered mechanically, before looking up at Sergeant Collins. Detective sergeant, not uniform sergeant.

“Do you know Stephen Hallett?”

“Yes, sir, why?” Was there some reason why I shouldn’t?

“What do you know about him?” Collins sat down companionably on the corner of the table, but his posture was anything but relaxed.

“What do you mean, what do I know? I know a lot of stuff.”

“Tell me some of it.”

“Well, he’s a super-good investigator, one of the best I ever met from the FBI. I mean — oh, you know, most of them don’t really—”

“Investigate. I know. Go on.”

“He’s a nice guy. By that I mean when he’s tired and cross he makes sure whoever’s around knows he’s cross because he’s tired, not because somebody did something. But he doesn’t get cross much.”

“What about his personal life?”

I shrugged. “He’s married. So was I, then.”

“What kind of marriage?”

“Why on earth do you want to know that?”

“Because two hours ago he called 911 and said, ‘You better send somebody out here. I think I just killed my wife.’ And we did, and he had. Now, what kind of marriage?”

Numbly, I bent over to pick up the ticket book I seemed unaccountably to have dropped on the floor. “Okay,” I said, with, I suppose, some vague hope that telling the truth would help him, “okay, okay — kind of marriage. They — I don’t know, Steve isn’t the sort of person to go around crying on people’s shoulders, but I had the feeling it — just wasn’t working, not as a marriage anyway. The only time he said anything to me, we were talking one day and he’d just lost one in court that he should have won, and I said he must have had a lousy jury. And he said he wished Evelyn would say that, but she’d probably just say he was stupid, so he wouldn’t tell her about it at all. And one day — the guys were talking. We had a series-type rapist, and you know how guys talk, and they’d forgotten I was there. Steve said the rapist was getting more than he was. So I said since he was married he ought to be able to solve that problem, and he sort of grinned, but his eyes looked — funny.”

Sergeant Collins looked at the table, and then he got off it and quit trying to pretend we were buddies. “You like him?” he asked, standing straight beside me.

“I like him.”

“Even if he did kill his wife?”

“I don’t know that he killed his wife.”

“He says he did.”

“I still don’t know that he did. Why did you come tell me this anyway? I’m no detective, not here, not now.”

“Because,” Sergeant Collins said, “he says he’ll sign a rights waiver and tell what happened if he can tell you, and only if. Will you get a statement from him?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll tape-record it. Be sure you understand that. Just because he’s your friend doesn’t mean—”

“Look,” I flared at him, “I’m not going to cover up for him and he knows it and he wouldn’t ask me to. And if you feel that way, you’d better sit in on it.”

“Not necessary,” Collins said. “But what I’m afraid of is — he’s smart. You know that. And I’m afraid he’ll on purpose blurt out something as soon as you go in, because he knows you, and then turn around later and claim he wasn’t advised of his rights. So I told him, and I’m telling you, that if either of you says one damn word to the other, even if it’s just hello, before I get that tape recorder turned on, you go right back out the door. And I want the rights waiver signed before I leave the room.”

“You should have already got it signed,” I pointed out not very politely.

Collins sighed, deliberately audibly. “We got one at the scene. But I don’t want him to be able to claim later he was too shocky to know what he was signing. So we get another one signed now.”

“Right,” I said, wondering why he was sounding so belligerent to me. I hadn’t done anything, after all... But then I stopped wondering and followed him into the little interrogation room that looked just exactly like the one at home. Steve was sitting in that straight chair that’s always reserved for suspects, the chair that’s not quite uncomfortable, but certainly not quite comfortable either.

He looked just the way he always looked, his coat neat and his tie straight, but his eyes when he turned toward me seemed almost as empty as his holster. Don’t speak, I reminded myself, but impulsively I reached for his hand. He looked startled. Then, with a long shuddering sigh, he leaned forward, pulling me toward him, burying his face in the blue serge of my shirt. Unexpectedly, I found my hands on his shoulders.

Dragging my hands away, Sergeant Collins caught him by the left shoulder and shoved him back into the chair. “Take off your gunbelt,” he ordered me curtly. “Put it in my office.”

“Right,” I said, seething inside. What did he expect, that Steve was going to grab my pistol and use it to escape? But then I glanced at Steve and realized that was exactly what Sergeant Collins expected, and Steve realized that even if I didn’t. So I walked out the door and into the small office next to it, took off my black basketweave belt, wrapped it around my still-holstered revolver, laid it on Sergeant Collins’s desk, and returned, to smile at Steve with one corner of my mouth. He lifted an eyebrow at me and tried to smile back, but he kept both hands on the table, quite still.

The tape recorder was running now. Sergeant Collins gave the date. “Offense, homicide,” he said. “Victim, Evelyn Hallett. Suspect, Stephen Hallett. Interviewer, Policewoman Lorene Taylor. Now, go ahead.” He shoved the rights waiver over to me. Apparently I was in charge of getting it signed. He hadn’t mentioned that before.

I looked over at Steve, wondering how I was supposed to handle this if I was also not supposed to say one word until after the rights waiver was signed, and then I slid it on over to Steve. He looked at it, looked at the tape recorder, and looked back at me.

This was assuming the proportions of surrealism. It was some kind of bloody awful, rotten joke. Steve and I together had read people their rights; we’d worked together on a lot of cases. In a town just big enough to have two or three federal agents, but not big enough for a regular field office, the federal agents rely on local police support. I hate this, I thought bitterly, and then reminded myself that Steve undoubtedly was hating it a lot more. So I made the little speech, winding up with the usual “Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?”

Stupid question. This guy had a law degree. “Yes, I do.” Very formal. Steve’s voice, the first time I’d heard it in seven months, oddly husky, but with his usual strength.

“Do you wish to give up the right to remain silent?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then sign right there, please.”

Sergeant Collins signed under Steve and then departed, closing the door very quietly. I wondered who he thought he was kidding. I’d already noticed that the “mirror” in this holding room was a window from Sergeant Collins’s office, and Steve certainly knew it, too. Anybody who didn’t realize Sergeant Collins was putting that window into use — well, that person hadn’t been in police work as long as I had.

But of course I had to pretend I didn’t know it, and so did Steve. “What happened?” I asked.

He closed his eyes, swallowed, reopened his eyes. “I killed Evelyn.”

“Why?”

“Why?” He paused, as if to think about it, and his voice sounded rambling as he began to reply. “I’m six foot three. She’s — she was — five foot two and ninety-five pounds... I don’t know why, Lorene. I shouldn’t have — I shouldn’t have needed to.”

“Did you need to?”

“I guess I must have.” The voice wondering as well as wandering. “I did, didn’t I? So I guess I must have needed to, or at least I thought then I did.”

I know how to question prisoners. You don’t show any impatience, you take as long as it takes, you ask questions right — but this wasn’t just any prisoner hauled in off the street, this was Steve. “Look, darn it,” I said, “I don’t know anything at all about this except they told me to come in here and take a statement from you, and Steve, you ought to have sense enough to know I’m confused enough as it is. Now, will you for cryin’ out loud tell me what happened?”

He jumped as if I’d awakened him from a half-sleep, and tears began to form in his eyes as if only his daze had kept them at bay. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I... look, I’m sorry, Lorene, I just — they’re out there at my house, the crime-scene people, and — Evelyn’s just lying there and they say they won’t move her for hours, and I never worked a killing for cryin’ out loud, but how they can just leave her — and they brought me up here and — and — they won’t even put a sheet over her, and I... I quit loving her a long time ago but I did love her once— It’s Evelyn, and she’s dead — like that — and they won’t even cover her up.”

“You’re not there to see it.”

“But I know.”

“All right,” I said. “I have worked killings, and I wouldn’t move her yet either. And I never covered up a corpse in my life, unless it was outside. You’ve worked crime scenes. To them this is just another crime scene. Now will you please tell me—”

“All right. All right.” Oddly, reminding him it was just another crime scene seemed to calm him a little. “I was working on a— You don’t need to know that.”

Bureau security, even now, I thought irrelevantly.

“Anyhow, I was working and I called my office to check in and they said Evelyn wanted me to call her, and I did. She asked me to come home for lunch. I didn’t know why. We hadn’t been getting along very well, and we’d agreed, oh, a year or so ago, that when I got transferred she’d just stay there. The only reason she changed her mind and came with me after all, when I did get transferred last month, was she’d lost her job about then and thought maybe she could find one here. Did you know I was here?” he asked irrelevantly.

“Yes. I saw you three weeks ago.”

“How come you didn’t yell at me or something, when I didn’t see you?”

“Why should I?”

He looked hurt. “I thought we were friends.”

“Then how come you didn’t know where I went?”

“I was out of town for a trial,” he said. “And when I got back, I... when I got back I went in the detective bureau and was talking to people and you weren’t there and I figured you were on leave or something. But you kept on not being there. And then I asked Ransom where you were and he said, ‘Gone.’ I said, ‘Gone where?’ and he said, ‘She’s not with us anymore.’ He acted like he didn’t know where you went. Or didn’t want to tell me. And so I shut up. I’d have found out if I needed to, but I didn’t, and I figured if you didn’t tell me you must not want me to know. So—”

He shut up suddenly, tightening his lips together, as if by doing that he could stop the slow drip of tears from his eyes.

“I wanted you to know,” I said, afraid even that was saying too much. “But right now—” I nodded to the tape recorder.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Today. Right. She, uh, she thought she could find a job here but she didn’t. At least not yet.”

“Go on.”

“So I didn’t know why she wanted me home for lunch.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t connect, does it, Lorene? What I mean is, she didn’t love me, she didn’t even like me anymore, so why the hell did she want to have lunch with me? But I had time, and so I said okay. When I got there she was lying on the couch; that was nothing new, she’d been doing that a lot lately. She said, ‘Hi, Steve,’ and I said, ‘Hi, Evie,’ and I turned around to lay my pistol on top of the bookcase just like I always do first thing when I get home, and then when I turned back toward her she had a pistol in her hand.”

“Yours?”

“No, I don’t have but the one. I don’t know where she got it from. I’d never seen it before. I asked her what she was doing and she said — real conversational, like she was telling me what the weather was — she said, ‘I’m going to kill you.’ So I thought she’d been drinking again — she’d been drinking a lot the last few months, claiming it was because she had a headache, like there was anybody in the world could drink that much and not have a headache — and I said, ‘I’ll come back later when you’re sober,’ and I started to head for the door.”

“Without your gun.”

“Yeah. Like that would really make any big difference. How often do I need a gun? So I started to head for the door, and she shot at me.” It was evident the memory was still more startling to him than frightening. “That’s the only time I’ve ever been shot at. She missed, of course. She’s... she was — a very bad shot. I’d tried to teach her, back before we got married.”

“Where’d the slug hit?”

“I didn’t notice. Somewhere high to my right, I think.”

“Too scared to notice?”

“Too startled. I didn’t have the time to get scared till later. You know.”

Of course he was right. I did know. “Then what?”

“Then of course I asked her why she did that, and she said, ‘You aren’t leaving this room.’ I asked why again, and she told me. In... in somewhat thorough detail, only none of it made sense.”

“In what way?” He shook his head instead of answering, and I said, “Steve, you’re going to have to tell me.”

“She said—” He shook his head again. “Look, I told you we weren’t getting along. And so we weren’t sleeping together. And I’m not saying it was all her fault but it damn sure wasn’t all mine either. Things like that just happen. That’s why divorce courts stay full.” He paused; I wondered if he’d decided that was all he was going to say.

The pause continued, and I said, “I know. I’ve been in one myself lately. Go on.”

“Have you?” He looked briefly interested at that, and then continued. “She was saying it was all my fault — all my fault she always had to work even when she didn’t want to, and that wasn’t true. I make a decent living and she didn’t have to work, but she always said she wanted to, and for the last couple of weeks she’d been mad all the time because she couldn’t find a job she wanted. And she said it was my fault we don’t have any children. Okay, when we first got married we were both still in school and we didn’t want a family until that was behind us. And for the last couple of years, well, you don’t acquire kids by spontaneous combustion. Look, I’d have been ready to have children, but not the way she was drinking, and we weren’t sleeping together and she didn’t want to anyway. But there were about three years between, and I don’t know why she didn’t get pregnant. Maybe one of us was sterile, I don’t know. It certainly wasn’t anybody’s fault. It could be my problem, it could be hers, but guessing at it is stupid. I really always thought it was because she was so thin; she never would eat right, and she ran all the time, it was like she was living on Scotch and air, but that’s beside the point.”

“You’re saying she was anorexic?” I asked.

Steve shrugged. “Anorexia, bulimia, how should I know? I never saw her vomiting on purpose, but I didn’t see her eat very much either. I mean, we could go out to dinner at the nicest restaurant in town and she’d order thirty dollars’ worth of steak and lobster and eat three bites. Five, if I twisted her arm. I mean verbally. I wouldn’t really— Oh, you know. That kind of thing. And the drinking — I knew she was depressed. I got her to go to a doctor and he put her on some kind of antidepressant—”

“Prozac?”

“No, just some sort of — I don’t remember, it ended with ‘ine.’ He said it would take about three weeks for it to work. She took it three days and flushed the rest down the toilet. Said she hated to take stuff.”

“So she was depressed and she wouldn’t do anything about the depression. And she was drinking heavily.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “And she — she’d been acting like she hated me, like it was all my fault she felt like hell. Well, it wasn’t. It wasn’t my fault she didn’t know what she wanted. It wasn’t my fault she fought with all her friends until she didn’t have any left. It wasn’t my fault she didn’t get along with her parents and didn’t have any brothers or sisters. I couldn’t make her take antidepressants. I couldn’t make her stop drinking. I couldn’t create a job for her when there wasn’t one. If I tried to take her out — dancing, or movies, or something — she wouldn’t go.”

“And that’s the background,” I said.

“That’s the background,” he agreed.

“So getting back to today — she started spewing out all this stuff, and you said you were going to leave and come back when she was sober, and she shot at you, and then?”

“And then — she was pointing the gun at me, and I could see that she was cocking it again — she didn’t need to, it was double-action, but I guess she wasn’t strong enough to fire it double-action, and I tried to take it away from her and I got hold of her hand and the gun went off and she went limp and there was blood everywhere—”

He was trained to deal with emergencies. But this was his own personal emergency, of a kind no one ever expects to have to deal with, and he was shaking all over.

Making my voice as impersonal as possible, I asked, “Was the gun still in her hand?”

“Yes, and she was still breathing, so I tried to call an ambulance and the phone was dead, so I ran next door to get the neighbors to call an ambulance, but they weren’t home, so I had to run around to the resident manager’s office and I guess I should have told her to call the police, but I didn’t even think of it, I did it myself—”

“Reporting Evelyn already dead.”

“Lorene, with that much blood—”

“All right, go on,” I said, this time wishing I’d kept my mouth shut.

“So then I ran back to the apartment to see if I could do anything about the bleeding before the ambulance got there, and she was dead.”

“What kind of gun was it?”

“A twenty-two. A crummy little R.G., I think. I saw it when we were fighting over it. I never looked at it afterwards — I didn’t want to — but I’m pretty sure it was an R.G.”

“Steve,” I pointed out, “that’s not murder. If it happened the way you said—”

“I never said it was murder. I said I killed her.”

“I’m not even sure of that, from what you’ve said. Anyway, let me get a typewriter in here and let’s get it down on paper. Do you mind if the sergeant sits in?”

“Not now.”

“Then why didn’t you want him to start with?”

“Because I knew he wouldn’t believe me. You might. And the reason — it doesn’t make sense to me, so why should it to him? And if I started crying — Lorene, I knew he was going to watch and listen anyway.” He looked bitterly at the one-way window. “But if I started crying at least I wouldn’t have to look at him watch me.” Not totally unpredictably, he did start crying then. “I just wish I’d known she hated me that much — she talked about it, but I thought at least half of it was talk — there should have been something I could do, even if it was only get the hell out of there—”

“Steve,” I said, “she could have left if she’d wanted to. Couldn’t she?”

“Yeah. She had money. She had charge cards. She could have found a job in a bigger town, easy. And — I wouldn’t have gone chasing after her to bring her back. And she sure as hell knew that.”

“Now can he go home?” I asked thirty minutes later, as Sergeant Collins looked with some visible satisfaction at the written and signed statement.

“Go home? Hell, no, he can’t go home.”

“Why not?”

“This is a very pretty fairy tale.” Collins laid the paper down on his desk. “But the woman was shot once with a thirty-eight. There wasn’t even a twenty-two in the room. And no bullet holes in there either, except the one in her.”

“Maybe the other bullets went out the window. And there are R.G. thirty-eights. Maybe he was mistaken.”

“You’re telling me an FBI agent can’t tell the difference between a twenty-two and a thirty-eight?”

“You ever look at a gun from the front end?” I asked softly. “I mean, a gun in business, not one that you’re cleaning? A twenty-two looks like a cannon.”

He looked at me. “You know?”

“I know.”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll have to take your word for it. But there wasn’t an R.G. thirty-eight in there either. There was no gun of any description whatsoever except his service revolver. And it’s an apartment. There aren’t any windows in the living room that open, which means a bullet would have to break glass to go out, which means it didn’t happen because there’s no broken glass. And that service revolver, which he says hasn’t been fired since he cleaned it after going to the range two weeks ago, was lying on the couch with a fouled barrel. Oh yes, that phone. You can bet it was out of order. The wire was cut where it came into the house and taped back together... Now would you like to go break the news to your buddy that I’m taking out a warrant for him for capital murder?”

I let myself in with Steve’s key, which he had slipped into my hand while the sergeant was gone to get the warrant signed and nobody was watching from the other side of the fake mirror. Then he’d laughed at himself, because he didn’t have to give me the key so stealthily and because there were other things he had to give me too, things that couldn’t be hidden.

The stench of blood, of death, hung over the room. I told myself it was a crime scene, no more than a crime scene. I knew crime scenes; I’d coped with plenty of them. I’d read the reports, and I knew nothing had been carried away except the body and the revolver.

I also knew I was breaking the rules, and I didn’t care. It was only department rules, not the ones that matter.

No fingerprint powder, of course. Steve lived here, and there had been no reason to look for anybody else’s. A yellow chalk outline where the body had lain on its back on the beige carpet. Blood — it was a lot of blood; I’d seen shotgun killings bleed less than that. It appeared to me she’d fallen back on the couch bleeding and then rolled onto the floor still bleeding. If the bullet had cut an artery, and then her heart had gone on pumping even after her brain was dead — that happens, of course, I’d once seen a heart go on beating for half an hour after the brain had been literally blown out of the skull from a shotgun blast.

But I didn’t remember even that one having so much blood.

I forced my attention away, to the investigation I’d come here to do. What was that on the wall? If it was a bullet hole, to corroborate Steve’s story — no. Damn. Something waxy, like a kid’s crayon, except that it was pretty high for a kid to reach, and white besides.

“If I have to,” I’d told Steve, “I’ll work it all over there from the beginning on my own. But if I go over there, I’m going to search. Really.”

He’d answered, “Search,” and he’d known what I meant when I said it. He’d even insisted on signing a consent to search form, to make sure everything was legal — well, semi-legal; nobody had witnessed the document — even if it didn’t follow departmental rules.

I had to give him one more warning. “If you’re lying, Steve, I’ll find it out.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why I want you to go.”

So I was here, in a two-bedroom apartment. There was nothing in the living room of great interest. A beige couch, unimaginative decorator style, the kind rental places supply, with no cushions except those that came with it. No plants, no china ornaments, no pictures on the walls. End tables, chairs — Steve, unlike most men with whom I’d come in contact, didn’t have a recliner, not that that meant anything. Stereo, TV, a few books.

Most of the little that was in the room looked as if it was Evelyn’s. Some college textbooks, her diploma and transcripts lying on an end table, dust on top of them as if they’d been lying there for several weeks. Well, of course she was job hunting, but what a funny double major, drama and political science. I couldn’t imagine what kind of work she’d done — or expected to do — with that combination.

I made myself dig down in the sides and back of the chair despite the lack of plastic gloves and my own squeamishness, which has, for I hope obvious reasons, become more pronounced of late. I might as well not have bothered; all I found was a balloon and a fingernail file, both very bloody. Laying them down, I went to wash my hands. The bathroom off the hall was just a bathroom. A toothbrush, an electric razor, pre-shave and aftershave lotion, towels and washcloths and soap. This must be Steve’s bathroom. Evelyn must have used the one off the master bedroom.

Bedrooms. Master bedroom first. King-size bed, unmade. Dresser — I wasn’t used to crime scenes involving my friends, and this felt more like prying than investigating. But I found no gun hidden in Steve’s underwear, or in Evelyn’s, or in the bathroom, which contained talcum powder, Lady Shave, bubble bath, and a lot of makeup, most of it dusty, as if it hadn’t been used in weeks.

The smaller bedroom, Steve’s, I suppose, was mostly filled with boxes, still unpacked, many of them taped shut. A single bed, sheet thrown back, with a man’s undershirt and a towel lying on it, and an alarm clock and a shoeshine kit (not dusty) on the table beside it. A few of Steve’s clothes had been in the second closet in the larger room, but most of them were in here. No dresser, which explained why his underwear was in Evelyn’s dresser. The boxes of .38 wadcutters on a closet shelf, right beside the box of .38 copper jackets was totally expected; Steve was conscientious about going to the firing range two or three times a month.

The boxes were all neatly labeled — books, dishes, theatrical props — for all that meant, and some of them appeared, from the condition of the tape, never to have been unpacked even the last time they had moved.

I went back into the living room. A stereo cabinet full of records — I wonder, I thought, and knelt in front of it.

“Looking for something, Lorene?”

It was at that moment — until I realized it was Sergeant Collins behind me, speaking to me, and my heart slowed its gallop just a little bit — that I realized what people meant when they said they nearly jumped out of their skin.

“I expected to find you over here, as soon as we booked him in and found out his door key was gone. Still convinced he didn’t do it?”

“I can see why you think he did do it,” I said, “but he didn’t. Though I’ll agree his version isn’t accurate either.”

“He did shoot her, Lorene, there’s no getting around that.”

“I’m even beginning to doubt that.”

“Look, I’d be willing to agree maybe there was some kind of struggle, only not quite the way he tells it. Or I’d be willing to agree she somehow goaded him into shooting her, and he’s scared to admit it. Or I’d be willing to agree he’s so shook up he doesn’t even really know what happened. But if the first is true, then where the hell is the twenty-two? And if the second is true, then why is he telling such a silly story? And if the third is true — and it’s really the most likely — then why does he go on insisting he’s telling the exact truth?”

“The way I see it,” I replied, “is that if what he thinks happened didn’t, and if what you think happened didn’t, then there should be something here to say what did happen. And for starts, I’m looking for that twenty-two.”

“You really believe him, don’t you?” Collins said.

“Yes. I do.”

“And you know him. I don’t, not really. But you’re telling me somebody like you and me, somebody that carries a pistol all the time, isn’t capable of killing?”

“I didn’t say that.” My head was aching abominably. “I’m sure he’s capable of killing — just like you and me. If it had been the way he told it, yes, that could happen. Or even, if he’d shot back reactively when she shot at him, that could happen, but he wouldn’t lie about it. But — what you say happened — that’s not killing. That’s murder. And no. He’s not capable of that. And what are you doing here?”

“Search warrant,” Collins said, waving it at me. “Because I got to thinking. You believe him. And you’re a good cop.”

“Somebody noticed?”

“Somebody noticed. And I’ll admit I don’t know the man and you do, and sometimes I do jump to conclusions. He’s got to be smart to have the job he has, and a smart man isn’t going to think we’d mistake a thirty-eight slug for a twenty-two. Even if he panicked, he’d tell a better lie than that. And if he was too shocky to remember what happened, he’d admit it. So — I want to know what really happened.”

“He’s shocky,” I said. “But he knows what he did and what he saw. So...” I broke off, turned back to my search.

Sergeant Collins leaned forward. “Back up, that record you just tipped out, what’s—”

I was way ahead of him, and I intercepted his hand, automatically taking command of the scene because I’d done it so many times before. “Don’t touch it until I’ve photographed it.”

It was an R.G. twenty-two. It contained two rounds, both empty. Sergeant Collins, holding it gingerly, so as not to disturb fingerprints, sniffed at it. “Umm-hmm,” he said.

“I told you—”

“All right, you told me, but the fact remains she was killed with a thirty-eight and it’s about a hundred percent sure it was his. Anyhow, if that gun was fired in here, where’d the bullets go? For that matter, where’d they come from? I didn’t find any twenty-two ammo here, and if you had, you’d have told me already.”

I looked slowly around the room, up at the ceiling, across the walls, down at the bloody mess on the couch and the floor, and quite suddenly I knew what happened, knew exactly what happened just as well as if I’d been here watching. Now all I had to do was prove it, but that depended on a lot of things. “Did they do a gunpowder residue on her hands?” I asked.

“No, just on his. Do you want one on her? You don’t usually get anything from a twenty-two, don’t you know that?”

“An R.G. you will,” I answered. “And you’re lucky if it’s not shaving lead.” I had a long scar across my thumb from test-firing a misaligned R.G. 22. I would not soon forget the gunpowder that accompanied the sliver of lead thrown backwards toward my hand.

“So you want me to have somebody—”

“Not now,” I said, standing again. “I’ll do it myself. Come on, I know what happened here. Have you got—” And I went on giving orders, as I had done for years up until seven months ago, and neither the sergeant nor I quite noticed. “I don’t know what kind of equipment you have here, do you have a trace-metal kit, because if you don’t we’re going to have to—”

“We have one,” Sergeant Collins said slowly, “but I don’t think I ever saw it used. What do you mean, you know what happened?”

“I’ll tell you later. Let’s get a gunpowder-residue kit and a trace-metal kit and go to the morgue.”

“What are you trying to prove?”

“You’d never believe me, so I’m just going to have to show you.”

“You want me to turn off all the lights in the morgue?” the attendant asked incredulously, thirty minutes later. “What are you, some kind of—” He shut up then, catching the sergeant’s eye fixed on him.

“After I spray this stuff on her hands and turn on the black light,” I said, “I sure do. Okay, now — look.”

In the darkness, the dead woman’s hands glowed eerily. On her right palm, outlined with the glow, were the initials “R.G.” from the metal inset on the plastic grips of an R.G. 22. And on her left palm, also glowing, was the horse insignia of a Colt .38. Her right index finger and left thumb both glowed with the outlines of triggers.

“She shot herself,” I said.

“But how?” Steve demanded an hour later, sitting at the sergeant’s desk in blue jail coveralls.

“Once we knew what we were looking for, it was easy to find,” I told him. “She knew theater. She knew props. You load a bullet with soft wax and a primer, and it makes a satisfactory pop and does little or no damage. In a box that had been opened and resealed, we found an entire case of prop bullets — and she’d used at least two. The wax was spattered on the wall about three feet from the front door, and on the ceiling above the couch. You can fill a balloon with animal blood and puncture it — we got the lab people out of bed, and they said the blood on the couch was beef blood.”

“But how—”

I went on to tell him how I’d pulled the balloon and the nail file she’d used to puncture it out from under the cushions. “She’d disabled the phone on purpose, after she called you. Her fingerprints were on the roll the tape came from; we found them as soon as we thought to look. She knew where you always put your gun when you came in. She knew how you’d react, thinking she was hurt. When you ran for the phone, she stuffed the balloon behind the sofa cushions and threw the twenty-two behind the records — it’s got her prints on it and nobody else’s. Then she grabbed your gun — her prints are on it too, overlaying yours — and sat on the couch facing in towards the back of it, held the pistol at arm’s length so there wouldn’t be muzzle burns and so that the gun would be on the couch when she landed on the floor, and pulled the trigger.”

“But why?” Steve demanded. “I mean— All right. I knew she was suicidal. That was why I wouldn’t have a pistol in the house other than mine, why I never left it where she could get it. And before she filled that prescription I called the doctor to be sure there wasn’t enough in it to be fatal. I wouldn’t have been surprised if — but — why in the hell would she want to set me up? That doesn’t make any sense at all.”

I looked at Sergeant Collins, who stood abruptly and turned to look out the high barred window at the side of his desk. We’d argued about who was going to tell Steve the rest of it; neither of us wanted to.

“She hated you,” Collins said abruptly. “She hated you a lot more than you knew. As you said, she blamed you for her depression. And she wanted you to be as miserable as she’d been the last few years.”

“Wait a minute,” Steve said. “How do you know all this?”

“She kept a diary,” I said. “We found it. She blamed you — said she’d have been perfectly happy if—”

“If I’d been willing to live the way she wanted to live, yeah,” Steve said. “I heard that from her quite a few times — that, and I was boring and unimaginative— Oh hell. Thing is — I couldn’t live the way she wanted to. And the combination — she wanted to party every night and she wanted children and a decent job — all those don’t combine very well. Nobody has that much time. I wouldn’t do the partying, and she couldn’t find the job, and the children didn’t come. What was I supposed to do about all that?”

It made sense. It also sounded as if I had heard more than enough on this topic. “Steve,” I asked, “why did you say you killed her?”

“Because I thought it was the twenty-two. And big as I am, I ought to be able to take a gun away from a woman without hurting her. So — if I couldn’t — if I didn’t — then I thought I must’ve somehow subconsciously wanted to kill her.”

“Baloney,” I said. “I’d like to see either one of you take a gun away from me— Hey, I didn’t say both at once, dammit, give me back my gun!”

Sergeant Collins laid the pistol, which I continue to maintain he would never have gotten one on one, down on his desk. “Why did you tell me not to have them do a gunpowder residue on her, and then you went and did one?”

“Because you can do a trace metal first and then a gunpowder residue, but if you do it the other way around the acid in the gunpowder-residue kit destroys the trace metal and then you get a negative trace metal. Everybody knows that.” I wasn’t even ashamed of the smugness I could hear in my voice.

Both men were staring at me. “Everyone?” Stephen Hallett asked.

Another Grave Tone

by James Holding

Detectiverse

Here lies a thief, Tom Jones by name,

Breaking-and-entering was his game.

Jimmy a window, picklock a door,

Climb up a drain to an upper floor,

Render a burglar alarm quite mute

Before breaking in to gather his loot,

Squirm through a duct, cut through a fence:

Tom’s knowledge of break-ins was truly immense.

He could break his way into a store or a house,

Making no more noise than the quietest mouse.

Inside, he’d quickly collect in his bag

The creme de la creme of available swag—

And no need to wonder what Tom would do next: it

Was merely to make an unnoticed exit,

And fencing his loot (here the conscience recoils!)

Live high on the hog from his ill-gotten spoils.

And so he existed for several years

Without any failures, without any fears,

Until one summer midnight a curious cop

Espied him leaving a jewelry shop

With a small briefcase and a casual air

Of perfectly genuine savoir faire.

The cop thought, Midnight? It doesn’t seem right

That a jeweler is working till so late at night.

And then the detective saw something more:

The broken glass pane in the shop’s front door,

And he realized, at this second look,

That he had encountered a bona-fide crook.

Well, Tom was convicted and sentenced to jail,

Where his mood turned bitter, his life turned stale—

Until he and his cellmate (imprisoned for rape)

Decided to see if they couldn’t escape.

And they made a first-priority point

Of a breakout from their dismal joint.

So they summoned the jailer and gave him a knock

And stole his keys to their cell and the block,

And although their progress was painfully hard

They made it as far as the exercise yard,

Where, alas, a searchlight of blinding power

Revealed their flight to a guard in the tower

And one of the guards called, “Hold it! Freeze!

Or I’ll cut you off above the knees!”

But Tom and his cellmate didn’t obey—

They desperately ran for the yard’s gateway.

The guard’s gun chattered, it belched out lead

Until both the felons fell down dead.

So here lies Tom Jones, R.I.P.,

Whose simple epitaph shall be:

At break-ins and entering he was the best,

But at breakouts and exiting he flunked the test.

Snowball

by Reginald Hill

Writing under his own name and three pseudonyms, Reginald Hill combines genres with great originality and success. The Patrick Ruell novels, with equal dashes of romance, espionage, and adventure, are practically a genre unto themselves, while the Dalziel and Pascoe detective novels under his own name have a distinguishing philosophical slant. Running through almost all Reginald Hill’s work, however, is a thread of humor and a touch of bawdiness that make him a continual delight to read...

* * *

Alice had been baking jam tarts. If there was one thing Alice could do really well, it was bake. If you wanted another thing she could do really well, you were in trouble. But she was certainly a great baker.

I smelt the tarts even before I entered the kitchen after my morning walk. I always took a morning walk when I stayed at Rose Cottage, not because I liked the exercise but because it gave me a chance to get rid of Alice’s breakfast out of my Times. Normally I’m a Mirror man, but a tabloid’s no good for concealing a breakfast. Alice’s jam tarts were superb, but her fried eggs defied description. Or dissolution, as I had discovered after an unhappy half-hour trying to flush one down the loo on my first visit the previous summer. So I had had to seek other methods of disposal and now the countryside round the village of Millthwaite was littered with caches of Alice’s fried eggs.

I could, of course, merely have rejected the breakfasts, but Alice was a very touchy person. She distrusted me on principle, as she distrusted all men who showed an interest in her poor widowed niece, Sally. But if distrust ripened into dislike, I was finished. So I praised the breakfasts and ordered the Times whenever I came to Millthwaite.

I stood and looked at the tarts cooling on the kitchen table. There were two dozen of them, intended, I surmised, for the Women’s Institute Fete that afternoon. I breathed in the rich seductive smell of warm pastry and hot jam. And I was tempted.

Why a man as eager to be liked as I was should have let himself be tempted is hard to explain. All I can say is four-and-twenty looks pretty like an infinity of tarts, and also I was very hungry. After all, I’d had no breakfast.

I picked one up. It made a single delicious mouthful. I had a second in my hand when I realized I was being observed.

Standing outside the window was the monster, Lennie. His wavy jet-black hair curled down over his brow, almost hiding the cold grey eyes which I felt rather than saw staring at me accusingly. At five years old, Lennie gave every promise of becoming as morally unscrupulous as his father.

I smiled reassuringly at him and offered him a tart. He was, after all, Sally’s son and the apple of Alice’s eye and I would do well to keep in his good books. But the little monster shook his head and said, “Fete” — or it might have been “fate.” Either way, it sounded like a threat.

With a sigh, I reached into my pocket and found it was empty, an all too common discovery of late. I had never realized how much our little contracting business depended on my partner, Leonard, until he fell off the scaffolding. I had tried to keep Sally’s share up at the old level, as I didn’t want Alice to get a sniff of my inefficiency, but it left me perpetually short.

Young Lennie didn’t have the mien of a child ready to be fobbed off with promissory notes. Debating what was best, I glanced idly round the kitchen and my eyes fell on a fifty-pence piece in a saucer on the shelf behind the cellar door. I picked it up. Lennie brushed his black locks aside to get a better view, and when I lobbed it through the window he plucked it out of the air like an on-form slip fielder. Then he was gone.

Just like his father, I thought as I went upstairs. You didn’t have to spell things out for him.

I met Sally coming out of the bathroom. She liked rising late when she could, which was useful to me as it meant I could breakfast alone. Sally was almost as sensitive on Alice’s behalf as the ancient beldame herself, and I wouldn’t have cared for her to catch me at my sleight of hand with the Times. I’d never thought of Sally as a particularly “loyal” person; in fact, as far as Leonard went, my experience had pointed quite the other way. But it turned out that she was a scion of one of those old blood-is-thicker-than-water bucolic families and after Leonard’s death she hadn’t hesitated to accept Aunt Alice’s invitation to come and stay till she “got herself sorted.” I had done all I could to help Sally bear her tragic loss and would have done a great deal more, but her sojourn at Millthwaite had somehow reawoken a whole ocean of sleeping Krakens, notably a sense of family and (worse still) a sense of propriety.

No, she hadn’t gone off me, she explained, as I tried to arrange a tryst in her bedroom on my first visit, but it wasn’t right, not here, in Aunt Alice’s house. And when I suggested what Aunt Alice might care to do, our relationship almost came to a close there and then. Left to herself, I had no doubt that in the end she would marry me. But Leonard’s death hadn’t left her to herself. It had left her to Lennie and to Alice and I wasn’t about to get my share without their express approval.

There was, besides, a more comfortably mercenary motive. Alice’s small fortune (“in the funds,” would you believe?) was going to come Lennie’s way, via his mother — but not if she rushed into a foolish second marriage. And even after three visits to Millthwaite, my suitability was still very much under scrutiny — and (though it hurt to admit it) not only by Alice!

Sally looked very fetching in her nightie and I couldn’t resist giving her a passionate embrace, which she permitted only because we could hear Alice in the hall below trying to make contact with the idiot girl who looked after the village’s tiny telephone exchange. My own recognition of the need for caution couldn’t survive such close contact with that soft flesh and I was trying to maneuver Sally back into the bathroom when Alice’s voice rose sufficiently to penetrate even the drumbeat of hot blood in my ears.

“Constable Jarvis!” she bellowed. “That’s who I want! No reply? What if I was being assaulted? — No, I’m not! I’ll try later!”

She slammed the phone down as I descended the stairs, having abruptly abandoned my assault on Sally much to her surprise and, I hope, disappointment.

“Anything wrong, Alice?” I asked casually.

She regarded me with distaste. She was a big-boned, grey-haired countrywoman in her late fifties and anger turned her face a greyish-purple and drew the sides of her mouth down till they almost touched her chin.

“You didn’t eat any of my tarts, did you?” she demanded.

No one in his right mind would have admitted it at that moment.

“No!” I said emphatically. “Are some missing?”

“Four,” she said.

Four! I’d only taken two! The monster, Lennie, must have returned and taken the others. How like his father, to add theft to blackmail!

Without compunction I suggested, “Perhaps Lennie helped himself?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “The milkman’s money’s gone from the shelf, too. He’d not do that.”

But you still asked me! I thought indignantly. What a world it was where children received more trust than their elders. Especially a child whose criminal inheritance stood out like a love-bite on a nun.

“No, I know who it’d be,” she continued grimly. My blood chilled. “I saw that tramp, the one they call Old Tommy, hanging around earlier. He kept going when he saw me, he knows there’s nothing for the likes of him at my house. He must have come back through the kitchen garden later. I’ll get Jarvis after him as soon as he bothers to answer his phone.”

So saying, she picked up the telephone once more.

I went through the kitchen, avoided the temptation of the depleted but still heavily loaded tray of tarts, and strolled out into the morning sunshine. It seemed like a good time for a walk. If I could have spotted young Lennie, I’d have invited him along, not because of his sparkling conversation but merely to have him out of the way when P.C. Jarvis arrived. But he was nowhere in sight, so I had to be content with making myself scarce.

Not that there was much to bother about. I’d seen this tramp, Old Tommy, pretty frequently on my egg-disposal expeditions along the country byways and he looked a natural suspect for all petty crime in the district. So I strolled along enjoying the warm sunshine, the lush green fields gilded with buttercups, and the warbling of innumerable birds. Even the distant pop of a shotgun as some unsentimental farmer tried to cut down on the warbling seemed to blend in with the overall rich sensuous pattern of Nature.

The pattern became a little threadbare round the next corner. There, sitting in the hedgerow like a pile of household rubbish dumped by a passing vandal, was Old Tommy. Some tramps are picturesque at a distance. Close or far, Tommy was revolting. Such skin as could be seen through the layers of rags and the tangles of lank gingery hair was a mottled grey, like moldy bread. He was stuffing some sort of food he held wrapped in an old newspaper into the mouth which doubtless lay beneath the beard and he didn’t even look up as I passed. I would have ignored him also if it hadn’t been for a sudden shock of recognition.

That was no ordinary food he was eating! That was one of Alice’s solid fried eggs!

Surely a man could get no lower than this? I stopped and shared the horror of his degradation.

Now he looked up and acknowledged my presence.

“I would appreciate a little more salt,” he said. “If you could manage that one morning.”

Now my shock was doubled, or even trebled. He knew who I was! No wonder I’d seen him so frequently on my post-breakfast trips. Whenever I was at Millthwaite, it must have been like room service to him!

But worse still was his voice. This was no mumbling, half-witted derelict, but an educated man. The Times wasn’t just a container — he was holding it the right way up and reading the grease-stained news.

“Watch it, mate!” I blistered. “I’ll have the law on you.”

I daresay he looked surprised beneath the hair.

“What for?” he said. “Stealing your breakfast? You shouldn’t leave it lying around in ditches, should you? Now push off, will you, I want to get on with my paper.”

So saying, he opened it wide and I observed the words “Rose Cottage” scribbled plainly on the front page. If Jarvis questioned him about the money and the tarts, not only did he have the articulacy to defend himself, he had the evidence to support a counterattack. If this got back to Alice, her fury would be formidable.

I could see that there was little profit to be gained from arguing with Old Tommy. Threats weren’t going to work and I lacked the wherewithal to bribe him. In any case, as I’d found with young Lennie, bribery only got you in deeper. So with an affection of indifference, I began to retrace my steps.

The countryside round Millthwaite is thickly wooded and it was easy to step off the road round the first bend and find a vantage point among the trees from which I could observe what Old Tommy did next. The ground sloped sharply here. Far above me I could still hear the farmer stuffing pigeons full of buckshot. Behind me, in a small field carved out among the beechwoods, a couple of dozen sheep grazed, baa-ing contentedly as they chewed the lush grass. Bees buzzed, birds chirruped, leaves rustled. And over all the sun shone hotter and hotter.

God, how I hate the bloody countryside!

My fear was that Old Tommy might succumb to the general somnolence but, after only a minute or two, I saw him rise. If I read him aright, he was very willing to argue the toss with impotent civilians, but, empty though he believed my threat of the law to be, he preferred not to run the risk of an encounter with P.C. Jarvis. Or perhaps it was my connection with Rose Cottage and the ultimate deterrent of Aunt Alice which inspired him. Whatever the case, he began to walk with unwonted briskness along the lane in a direction which would ultimately bring him to the arterial road about two miles distant, and once over that he was off Jarvis’s patch.

I watched him out of sight with a lightening heart and whistled merrily as I. strolled through the sheep in the little field and out of the gate back onto the road.

But it seemed to be the fate of my bubbles of joy that summer morning to be rapidly burst.

As I came in sight of Rose Cottage again, I saw the lean and hungry figure of Constable Jarvis leaning on the gate in deep conversation with Alice. But it wasn’t just the sight of the constable that bothered me, it was what accompanied him.

On all my previous visits, Jarvis had moved majestically around the countryside on a very old, very upright, and very slow bicycle. The young and the hale could leave him far behind, and many of the old and the halt could give him a good run for his money.

But now a profligate state had seen fit to provide him with a shiny new motor scooter! Since Leonard’s death, I had frequently come into close and unpleasant contact with the Inland Revenue, and this blatant waste of taxpayers’ money filled me with rage.

It also filled me with apprehension. If Jarvis set off in the right direction, he could easily overtake Old Tommy before the tramp was safely over the arterial. I hadn’t been seen by the pair at the gate, so I quickly retreated. It was my simple intention, if Jarvis came this way, to flag him down and engage him in conversation as long as I possibly could. But when I came in view once more of the little field nestling among the wooded hills, I saw that not all the sheep were safely grazing inside anymore. Some fool had left the gate ajar. It was probably me. I was never very hot on the country code, I’m afraid. Anyway, two or three sheep were already out on the road and the others were queuing up to follow. Guiltily I set about trying to shoo the escapees back in. Then it struck me that here was the perfect excuse for delaying Jarvis if he came. Not that a couple of sheep would cause a country policeman much trouble. Was that the distant putt-putt of a motor scooter I could hear?

Acting with sudden resolution, I opened the gate wide, went into the field, and began waving my arms and shouting. For a few seconds, the stupid animals merely regarded me indifferently. Then, as if someone had pressed a panic button, suddenly they turned as one and stampeded out of the gate and down the road.

At exactly that moment, P.C. Jarvis came sailing round the corner. They must have used more of the taxpayers’ money to give him a first-class training, for he displayed a high degree of skill, gently colliding with no more than four or five of the leading animals before his machine came to rest in the hedgerow as, shortly afterwards, he did himself.

It was no time to come forward and pretend I had been trying to restore the sheep to their field, I decided. A quiet withdrawal was best. Jarvis was on his feet. He was bleeding slightly and looked rather dazed, but in the best traditions of the great force to which he belonged, he was applying himself instantly to the immediate task, which seemed to involve viciously kicking every sheep that was foolish enough to remain within range.

It would be a long time before he was ready to resume the chase after Old Tommy. Well satisfied, I climbed out of the field into the surrounding wood and began to make my way back towards the cottage across country.

I smiled as I walked at the thought of all those sheep running wildly in all directions. They would take hours to round up. Foolish animals! Unlike the rational part of creation, their only reaction to danger was flight. Had I been a sheep and not a man, I would doubtless have been running madly towards the railway station by now (I smiled at the thought), instead of which I was going to stay on at Rose Cottage, conquer Alice’s suspicions, win Sally’s hand, and live happily ever after.

Another bubble! Townie though I am, I had a sharp enough ear for danger to catch a discordant note in the great symphony of nature. And now I paused and listened.

I was right. Something was approaching fast — some large, heavy beast galloping down the slope towards me, paying scant attention to the undergrowth or any other obstacle. A wild boar? I wondered, ready to believe anything of a landscape which could house Aunt Alice.

Then I saw a figure and heard a distant voice. It was almost incomprehensible with anger and the thick local accent, but I heard enough to catch his general drift.

“—ing bugger! My — ing sheep! — ing shoot! — ing police!”

This might have been the not totally unattractive program of some new anarchist party, but I guessed not. No, it seemed more likely this was that same pigeon-shooter I had heard earlier, probably one of the local farmers, a fearsome tribe of primitives, fit consort for the likes of Alice. And I guessed from his broken speech that the sheep were his, and from some vantage point on the hill he’d observed my apparent attempt to rustle them!

I could only hope he’d been too distant for identification. From the time he’d taken to appear on the scene, it seemed likely. Without further ado, I took to my heels, scrambling madly through the undergrowth which, innocuous a moment earlier, now seemed to coil thorny tentacles around my calves and thighs at every step.

Behind me, the voice ceased its abusive babble and a single more terrible sound filled its place — the soft explosion of a shotgun cartridge. The leaves above my head hissed as though drilled by jets of boiling rain, frightened birds rose noisily into the air, and I fell to the ground with all the speed I could muster.

“Come on out, you varmint!” roared the awful voice. (He may or may not have said “you varmint,” but this was the kind of thing these local farmers were able to say with no self-consciousness whatsoever.)

I had no intention of coming out. I knew enough about country matters to recognize that he had let loose only one barrel of his shotgun and I felt sure that the other was anxiously seeking the slightest sign of movement on my part. My best bet was to lie low. The undergrowth around me was so thick and rustly that I should be able to keep close track of his movements if he began to approach.

Why this should have seemed a comfort I don’t know! When next he moved, I certainly heard him, but he was so near that he must just as certainly hear me if I attempted to retreat. Now he’d stopped again. I pictured him standing close by, beady eyes gleaming, ears and gun cocked for my slightest movement.

I could bear it no longer. I had to get out of there!

Slowly I rose, using a Walt Disney beech tree for cover. I had a strong sense that he was directly on the other side of it, but it didn’t matter. Nothing could be worse than this terror of waiting!

Then from under my feet a rabbit started! The poor beast must have been crouching only a couple of feet away from me, petrified by an equal terror. Now it was off in a noisy panic-stricken dash through the dark brush. I leaned against the tree startled half out of my mind, and suddenly the farmer, attracted by the noise of the rabbit’s flight, jumped out from behind the beech.

He looked exactly as I’d imagined him. I held my breath. He peered after the rabbit, gun leveled. I thought I was going to die. He hadn’t seen me yet, but he was only a yard away. I felt myself choking. Any moment he must turn!

I did the only thing possible.

Raising both my arms, I leapt forward and brought my clenched fists crashing down on the base of his thick red neck.

For the next few seconds, I staggered around in complete agony, certain I must have broken my wrists. When the pain eased slightly and the tears cleared from my eyes, I discovered the unfortunate farmer was lying flat on his face in a tangle of whin and briar. I must have unknowingly struck some particularly susceptible point of the body. It was the kind of thing I had frequently viewed with blasé disbelief in the cinema. I still do. They never show you the hero nursing his sprained wrists.

To my relief, he began to make groaning noises and even essayed a movement of the arms to push himself upright. It was unsuccessful, but the next one might not be. His shotgun lay at my feet. I did not feel he was going to be a safe person, either physically or mentally, to bear arms for a few hours, so I picked it up and set off at a brisk trot.

The trees thinned out after a while and I could make almost as rapid progress as I would have done in the open. Eventually the wood became a mere meadow and this ran all the way to the hedge which marked the farthest boundary of Alice’s kitchen garden.

Flitting from tree to tree, I crossed the meadow with a mixture of speed and circumspection, my mind very much concerned with the twin necessities of getting under cover as quickly as possible and of getting into the house without being spotted. It was the monster, Lennie, I feared most of all. Discovery by Alice would be more completely devastating, I knew, but in terms of sheer probability Lennie was the real danger. Alice was a large woman, slow moving, easily spottable, while Lennie wandered hither and thither like an infant poltergeist, perceptible only by the trail of damage he left. He could be sitting behind the hedge at this very moment watching my progress with that cold curiosity of his, wondering what profit was in it for him.

I stopped and regarded the hedge uneasily, victim of my own imaginings. But my luck was holding. As I watched, I heard the noise of a car and out of the old lean-to garage at the far side of the house pulled Sally’s Mini. I caught a clear glimpse of two heads, one topped by Sally’s dear long blond hair, the other by Lennie’s raven-black tangle, before the car turned into the road and set off for Millthwaite village, which fortunately lay in the opposite direction to the angry policeman, the assaulted farmer, the educated tramp, and the rustled sheep.

This left only Alice, and a glance at my watch told me that it was more than likely she, too, would be out. About this time most mornings she took a short walk over the fields to practice good works on Widow Tyler, who was too old to resist or too imbecile to resent the dreadful condescension with which Alice’s gifts of caramel custards, nourishing broths, or homemade wine (all on a par with her fried eggs) were given.

Saying a little prayer of anticipatory thanks, I dashed across the few remaining yards of the meadow, clambered over the hedge, trod with fearful care between the rows of Alice’s vegetables (how hard do our old terrors die!), and entered the kitchen.

It was empty. The twenty tarts still lay on the table. The empty saucer still stood on the shelf by the cellar door.

I realized I was still holding my borrowed shotgun and I put it down on the table. It took only a couple of moments to assure myself that there was no one in the living room or upstairs. Now all I had to do was clean off the traces of my passage through the woods and change my clothing to make identification more difficult. But first I returned to the kitchen to retrieve the telltale shotgun. It looked quite domestic lying there on that rustic table amid a squad of jam tarts. I picked it up, turned to go, then for the second time that day temptation assailed me.

The snowball had started rolling here. Alice’s tarts, Lennie’s blackmail, the milkman’s money; the accused tramp, the escaped sheep, the crashed constable; the assaulted farmer and the stolen gun. And all for the sake of a couple of jam tarts.

Surely I deserved another?

Of course I did.

I took it and raised it to my mouth. Behind me I heard a noise. My nerves had gone beyond rapid reaction. Slowly I turned.

Standing in the cellar doorway with a bottle of elderberry wine in her hand and an expression of self-righteous triumph on her face was Alice.

“I knew it were you!” she cried. “I knew it!”

This was nonsense, of course, and mere wish-fulfillment. I opened my mouth to say as much, when I observed the triumph fading to be replaced by another less positive expression. For a second I was puzzled, till I realized that as I had turned the shotgun had turned with me and the barrel was pointed straight at Alice’s ample bosom. Flushed with effort, gashed by briars, and grim with guilt, I must have looked quite a frightening sight.

I savored the moment, knowing that I could scarcely hope twice in a lifetime to have the ascendancy over Alice.

Popping the tart in my mouth, I brought both hands to bear on the gun and curled my finger around the forward trigger. Her eyes bulged. I smiled and squeezed.

“Boom!” I said through a mouthful of pastry.

She shrieked and stepped backwards, then disappeared from view as though she’d dropped into a hole. I heard Widow Tyler’s bottle of elderberry smash to pieces on the cellar floor. And I heard no more.

After a moment, I moved slowly forward and peered down the steep flight of worn stairs.

It was a very lucky escape for Alice, I realized. If I’d squeezed the other trigger, she’d have got the loaded barrel right through her whalebone corset. As it was, I thought as I carefully closed the cellar door, her parting from this world was tragic rather than scandalous. That would have been the way she wanted it — Alice would have hated being relegated to the status of mere victim.

When Sally and Lennie returned, I was clean, immaculate, and relaxed, standing by the kitchen window eating jam tarts. Lennie looked at the tray with uncharacteristic bewilderment. There were only ten left.

Sally made no comment but put the kettle on. Her face wore that characteristic half smile which few of the world’s upsets could remove for long. She was a dear girl, able to take everything in her stride, neither asking for, nor attending to, explanations.

“I’ll make a pot of tea,” she said. “We’ll have it in the garden. Or would you prefer a bottle of Aunt Alice’s potato wine?”

I considered the option.

“No,” I said. “Tea will be fine.”

I had another jam tart. Lennie’s eyes never left me. I thought of cause and effect; small causes, large effects; single steps and journeys of a thousand miles. I had not known what I was doing when I took the tarts that morning any more than I could have foreseen the consequences that other morning (so long ago it now seemed) when I helped myself to a couple of quid from the petty-cash box. Such a fuss Leonard had made! Poor, soft, amiable, hard-working Leonard, to make such a fuss about a few pounds when for years I had been milking every penny I could out of the business! He’d been very upset. I’d told the coroner so, though I naturally did not particularize the cause. Pressure of work was mentioned. Pressure of heel as he clung to the outer scaffolding was not. The heart has its laws which the law might misunderstand.

Lennie was breathing heavily over the remaining tarts.

“Help yourself,” I said magnanimously. He considered this for a moment, the deep grey eyes under the shock of black hair inward-looking as he weighed up the situation. Then he arrived at his decision, smiled broadly, and grabbed two.

I, too, smiled, feeling almost fond of the little monster. Perhaps, I thought, preening myself slightly as I regarded my reflection in the kitchen window, perhaps he had inherited some of his father’s good qualities, too.

My reflection nodded agreement and a lock of my jet-black hair flopped down over my deep-set grey eyes. I pushed it back and thought that perhaps it was as well Leonard had not lived to see the way young Lennie developed.

“We are all children of fate,” I mused as we went out into the garden.

“Fete?” said Sally. “This afternoon’s, you mean?”

Lennie, bringing up the rear with the last of the jam tarts on a plate, said nothing.

But I felt that he understood.

Miss Butterfingers

by Monica Quill

Under the pseudonym Monica Quill, author Ralph McInerny has created one of the most entertaining of all clerical sleuths. Sister Mary Teresa Dempsey, Emtee (M.T.) to the two other remaining sisters of the Order of Martha and Mary, is a habited, overweight, stickler for correct grammar, with an endearing share of faults, and a head for sleuthing. If you haven’t encountered her before, it’s our pleasure to introduce her in the case of Miss Butterfingers...

1

By the second day, there was no doubt that the man was following her; he showed up in too many places for it to be a coincidence, but Kim let another day go by before she mentioned it to Joyce and Sister Mary Teresa. “Tell him to knock it off,” Joyce said, drawing on pre-convent parlance. “Ignore him,” Emtee Dempsey said. But Kim found it impossible to follow either bit of advice. Joyce offered to go with her, but then it was hard to say what Joyce would do for several hours in the Northwestern library. And then suddenly one day there was the man, sitting in the reading room, looking about as comfortable as Joyce would have.

To feel compassion for a pest was not the reaction Kim expected from herself. Now, after days of seeing that oval face, expressionless except for the eyes, whenever she turned around, she felt a little surge of pity.

She settled down to work, driving the man from her mind, and was soon immersed in the research that, God and Sister Mary Teresa permitting, would eventually result in her doctoral dissertation. When she went to consult the card catalogue, she had completely forgotten her pursuer, and when she turned to find herself face to face with him, she let out an involuntary cry.

“Don’t be frightened.” He looked wildly around.

“I am not frightened. Why are you following me?”

He nodded. “I thought you’d noticed.”

“What do you want?”

“I know you’re a nun.”

Well, that was a relief. The only indication in her dress that she was a religious was the veil she wore in the morning when the three of them went to the cathedral for Mass, but of course Kim didn’t wear a veil on campus.

“Why not?” Sister Mary Teresa had asked. As far as the old nun was concerned, the decision taken by the order to permit members either to retain the traditional habit, as Emtee Dempsey herself had done, or to wear such suitable dress as they chose was still in force, no matter that the three of them in the house on Walton Street were all that remained of the Order of Martha and Mary. The old nun was the superior of the house, but would never have dreamt of imposing her personal will on the others. She had subtler ways of getting what she wanted. Of course, when it came to the rule, it was not a matter of imposing her will but that of their founder, Blessed Abigail Keineswegs, the authoress of the particular path to heaven they all had chosen when they were professed as nuns in the order.

“I think it has a negative effect on people.”

“Perhaps a dissuasive effect is what a young woman your age might want from the veil, Sister.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“Indeed.”

The day Emtee Dempsey lost an argument would be entered in the Guinness Book of Records. What had been particularly annoying about the young man was the possibility that he did not know she was a nun and would ask for a date, and then the explanation would be embarrassing. What a relief, accordingly, to learn that he knew her state in life.

“What is it you want?” She spoke with less aloofness. If he knew she was a nun, perhaps he was in some trouble and thought she might be of help.

“Oh, I don’t want anything.”

He looked intelligent enough; he was handsome in a way, dark hair, tall, nice smile lines around his eyes. Still, you never know. People with very low IQs don’t always look it.

“You can’t just follow people around. Would you want me to call a policeman?” The ragtag band of campus guards would not strike fear in many, but they looked like real policemen and as often as not that was enough.

“I am a policeman.”

“You are!” Kim stepped back as if to get a better look at him. “Chicago or Evanston?”

“Chicago.”

“I can check up on that, you know. What’s your name?”

“Your brother doesn’t know I’ve got this assignment. If you tell him, the whole point of it will be lost.”

The allusion to Richard dispelled her scepticism. “What are you talking about?”

“There’s been a threat against his family. You’re part of his family.”

“Who threatened him?”

“Does it matter? We’re taking it seriously.”

“But his wife and kids are the ones you should be looking after.”

“We are.”

“Nobody is going to harm me.”

“I hope you’re right. The reason I’ve been so obvious about following you is to let anyone who might try anything know that I’m around.”

It seemed churlish to object to this and silly to ask how long it would continue.

“You didn’t tell me your name.”

“That’s right.” His grin was like a schoolboy’s. Well, nuns brought out the boy in men, Kim had long been aware of that. Despite her age, she was often addressed as if she were the nun who had once rapped the knuckles of a now middle-aged man. It wasn’t necessary that she know her guardian’s name, not if she couldn’t call Richard and verify that he was a policeman.

After she knew why he was always around, his presence was more distracting rather than less. She felt self-conscious taking notes, every expression was one that might be observed. Within fifteen minutes, she closed her notebook and gathered up her things. All the way out to the Volkswagen bug and on the drive home to Walton Street, she assumed he was just behind her. Now that she knew he was following her, she couldn’t find him. But at least she could tell Emtee Dempsey and Joyce what was going on.

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Joyce said sarcastically. “There’s only a threat on your life and all along we thought it was something serious like a persistent Don Juan.”

“He said Richard doesn’t know?” Emtee Dempsey asked.

“That’s right.”

“But why wouldn’t he be told? Why don’t you call him?”

“What if our phone is tapped?”

Emtee Dempsey tried to look outraged but was actually delighted at the thought of such goings-on. “And if we invite Richard to come over, the young man will of course assume you are going to tell him.”

But Richard stopped by the next day unasked. He was ebullient and cheerful, turned down a beer twice before accepting one, sat in the study and looked around expansively.

“It’s nice to stop by here when you’re not interfering in my work.”

“Richard, I have never interfered in your work,” Sister Mary Teresa said primly.

His mouth opened in feigned shock and he looked apprehensively toward the ceiling. “I am waiting for a flash of lightning.”

“I do not need dramatic divine confirmations of what I say.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“What are you working on now?”

He shook his head. “Nothing important, but I would still rather not let you know.”

“Very well. And how is your lovely family?”

“I think Agatha, my oldest, has a vocation.”

“Really! What makes you think so?”

“No one can tell her a thing, she already knows it all.”

“Richard!” Kim said.

He grinned. “Maybe it’s just a stage she’s going through.”

“It must be very difficult for a child to have a father in the police force,” the old nun said.

Richard’s smile faded. “Why do you say that?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Your work takes you among such unsavory elements. It must sometimes be difficult to protect your family from all that.”

Kim gave Sister Mary Teresa a warning glance.

“I never bring my work home.”

“Does it ever follow you there?”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, I think of all the malefactors you have brought to justice. I imagine not all of them are grateful to you.”

He laughed. “Sister, there are even some who resent it.”

“That’s my point.”

“What is?”

Sister Mary Teresa hesitated. She had promised Kim she would not tell Richard that he and his family were being provided protection by his colleagues. She had come within an eyelash of saying it already, and she was obviously trying to think what further she could say without breaking her promise.

“Who are some of your victims who might seek revenge?”

“Sister, if I worried about things like that I’d have entered a monastery rather than the department.”

“Of course you wouldn’t worry about it. I don’t suggest that for a moment. Certainly not worry about your own safety. But just for the sake of conversation, if you had to pick someone who is in jail because of your efforts, blames you, and might want to avenge himself, who would it be?”

Richard adopted the attitude of the man of the world telling a house of recluses what was going on outside their walls. Emtee Dempsey was fully prepared to play the naive innocent in order to keep Richard talking.

“The difficulty would be ruling anyone out,” he said. “It’s fairly routine for a crook after the verdict is in to turn and threaten any and every cop who was in the investigation. This is especially true if you appear in court during the trial. Some even send letters once they’re settled in at Joliet.”

“Threats?”

“Kid stuff.”

“But that’s another crime, isn’t it?”

“Sister, if we brought charges for every crime that’s committed I wouldn’t be able to drop by for a social visit like this.”

“You are a very evasive man, Richard.”

“Thank you.”

“You have managed not to name one single criminal who might actually seek to do you harm because you were instrumental in his arrest.”

“I’ll give you one.”

“Good.”

“Regina Fastnekker.”

“The terrorist!”

“Miss Butterfingers.”

Regina Fastnekker was the youngest daughter of a prominent Winnetka family whose fancy it was to be an anarchist. A modern political theory class at De Paul had convinced her that man and human society are fundamentally corrupt, reform is an illusion, and the only constructive thing is to blow it all up. Something, Regina knew not what, would arise from the ashes, but whatever it was, it could not be worse than the present situation, and there was at least a chance it might be better. On the basis of a single chemistry class, Regina began to make explosives in the privacy of the apartment she rented in the Loop. Winnetka had become too irredeemable for her to bear to live with her parents anymore. It was when one of her bombs went off, tearing out a wall and catapulting an upstairs neighbor into eternity, that Regina confessed to several bombings, one a public phone booth across the road from the entrance to Great Lakes Naval Base. When she was arrested, Regina’s hair was singed nearly completely off and that grim bald likeness of her was something she blamed on Richard. In a corrupt world, Regina nonetheless wanted to look her best.

“You’re part of the problem, cop,” she shouted at him.

“Sure. That’s why you’re going to jail and I’m not.”

“Someday,” she said meaningfully.

“Someday what?”

“POW!”

Emtee Dempsey’s eyes rounded as she listened. “How much longer will she be in jail?”

“How much longer? She was released after two years.”

“When was that?”

“I don’t know. A couple months ago.”

“Richard, won’t you have another beer?” Emtee Dempsey asked, pleased as punch. “I myself will have a cup of tea.”

“Well, we can’t have you drinking alone.”

Having found out what she wanted, Emtee Dempsey chattered on about other things. It was Richard who returned to the subject of Miss Butterfingers.

“In court she screamed out her rage, threatening the judge, everyone, but when she pointed her finger at me, looking really demented, and vowed she’d get me, I felt a chill. I did. Nonetheless, she was a model prisoner. Got religion. One of the Watergate penitents spoke at Joliet and she was among those who accepted Jesus as their personal savior.”

“Then her punishment served her well.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that cancels out Regina Fastnekker,” Joyce said when Richard had gone.

“We could make a methodical check,” Kim said.

“Or you could insist that your guardian angel tell you who has threatened Richard and his family. I should think you have a right to know if you have to put up with him wherever you go.”

“I’ll do it.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t insist on it when you talked with him.”

Kim accepted the criticism, particularly since she was kicking herself for not finding out more from... But she hadn’t even found out his name.

2

The next day two things happened that set the house on Walton Street on its ear, in Emtee Dempsey’s phrase. At five in the morning, the house reverberated with a tremendous noise and they emerged from their rooms into the hallway, staring astounded at one another.

“What was that?” Joyce asked, her eyes looking like Orphan Annie’s.

“An explosion.”

As soon as Emtee Dempsey said it, they realized that was indeed what they had heard. The old nun went back into her room and picked up the phone.

“It works,” she said, and put it down again. “Sister Kimberly, call the police.”

Joyce said, “I’ll check to see...”

“No.” Emtee Dempsey hesitated. Then she went into Kim’s room which looked out over Walton Street. They crowded around her. What looked to be pieces of their Volkswagen lay in the street, atop the roof of a red sedan, and shredded upholstery festooned the powerlines just below their eye level.

“Now you know what to report.”

Kim picked up her own phone and made the call.

They were up and dressed when there was a ring at the door. Their call had not been necessary to bring the police. Emtee Dempsey was pensive throughout the preliminary inquiry, letting Kim answer most of the questions. At ten minutes to seven she stood.

“We must be off to Mass.”

“Maybe you better not, Sister,” one of the policemen, Grimaldi, said. He wore his salt-and-pepper hair cut short and his lids lay in diagonals across his eyes, giving him a sleepy, friendly look.

“It is our practice to attend Mass every morning, Sergeant, and I certainly do not intend to alter it for this.”

When he realized she was serious, he offered to drive them to the cathedral and Emtee Dempsey was about to refuse when the drama of arriving at St. Matthew’s in a squad car struck her.

“Since we might otherwise be late, I agree. But no sirens.”

He promised no sirens, thereby, Kim was sure, disappointing Emtee Dempsey.

It was, to put it mildly, a distracting way to begin the day. As it happened, their emerging from a police car at the cathedral door was witnessed by a derelict or two, but otherwise caused no sensation. Once inside, Emtee Dempsey of course put aside such childishness. It was not until Richard joined Grimaldi later that Emtee Dempsey brought up Miss Butterfingers.

Richard squinted at her. “All right, what’s going on? How come you ask me about her yesterday and today your car’s blown up?”

“Richard, you introduced her into the conversation. I may have asked a thing or two then, but if I ever heard of the young woman before, I had forgotten it. Are you suggesting that she...”

“Aw, come on.”

“Sergeant Grimaldi, has the lieutenant been told of the concern about him and his family?”

Grimaldi looked uncomprehending.

“Perhaps you weren’t aware of it.” She turned to Kim. “I think you will agree, Sister, that I am no longer bound by my promise.”

“Of course not.”

“Richard, your colleagues have been assigned to look after you and your family. Even Sister Kimberly has had an escort these past days.”

Richard glared at Grimaldi, who lifted his shoulders. Richard then got on the phone. Emtee Dempsey’s initial attitude was a little smug; clearly she enjoyed knowing something about the police that Richard did not know. But her manner changed as the meaning of Richard’s end of the conversation became clear.

“There’s been no protective detail assigned to my family. Where in hell did you get such a notion?”

Emtee Dempsey nodded to Kim.

“A man has been following me for several days. Two days ago I had enough and asked him what he was doing. He said he was a policeman.”

“A Chicago policeman?”

“Yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you ask? Didn’t you ask for his ID?”

“No, Richard. And I didn’t call you up and ask what was going on either. At the time, I was relieved to learn why he was following me.”

“Relieved that I was supposedly threatened?”

“Well, I was relieved to think that Mary and the kids...”

“I don’t suppose he’ll be following you around today,” Richard broke in, “but I guarantee you a cop we know about will be.”

“You want Sister to keep to her regular routine?”

“Sister Mary Teresa, I want all of you to follow your regular routines. And if anything relevant to this happens, I want to know about it pronto.”

“An interesting use of the word, Richard. In Italian it means ready. It’s how they answer the phone. Pronto,” she said, trilling the r. “You, on the other hand, take it in its Spanish meaning.”

There was more, much more, until Richard fled the study. At their much delayed breakfast, the conversation was of the car. Joyce thought their insurance covered bombing. “Unless it’s considered an act of God.”

“Sister, a bombing is always an act of man. Or woman.”

The newspaper lay on the table unattended throughout the meal. After all, the news of the day had happened in their street.

“I’ll want to speak to Katherine about this. We don’t want her to learn of it from someone at the paper. What is in the paper, by the way?”

Joyce had taken the sports page and Kim, standing, was paging through the front section when she stopped and cried out.

“That’s him!”

“He,” Emtee Dempsey corrected automatically, coming to stand beside her.

The picture was of a young man, smiling, confident, embarking on life. Perhaps a graduation photograph.

His name was Michael Layton. He had been found dead after an explosion in a southside house. He had been missing for five years. He was the man who identified himself as a policeman in the Northwestern library.

3

Katherine Senski caught a cab from her office at the newspaper and was in the house within half an hour of Emtee Dempsey’s call, but of course there was far more to discuss now than the mere blowing up of their automobile. The street had been cordoned off, to the enormous aggravation and rage of who knows how many drivers, while special units collected debris and the all but intact rear end of the car, which seemed to have gone straight into the air, done a flipflop, and landed in their customary parking place.

“Dear God,” Katherine said. “They might be out there collecting pieces of you three.”

“Nonsense,” Emtee Dempsey said.

A first discovery was that the device had not been one that would have been triggered by starting the car. This conclusion was reached by noting the intact condition of the rear of the car.

“But aren’t such devices hooked up to starters, to motors?”

“The motor was in the rear end,” Joyce explained.

“Oh,” Katherine said, but the three nuns were suddenly struck by that past tense. Their Volkswagen bug was no more.

They had just settled down at the dining room table with a fresh pot of coffee when Benjamin Rush arrived. The elegant lawyer stood in the doorway, taking in the scene, and then resumed his usual savoir faire.

“It is a relief to see you, as the saying goes, in one piece, Sister. Sisters.”

They made room for him, but of course he refused coffee. He had had the single cup that must make do until lunchtime. Joyce brought him a glass of mineral water, which he regarded ruefully, not interrupting Emtee Dempsey’s colorful account of Kim’s being followed, her confronting the man, their attempt to get information from Richard. And then this morning. By the time she got to the actual explosion, it might have been wondered how she could keep the dramatic line of her narrative rising, so exciting the preliminary events were made to sound. Kim found herself wishing she had actually behaved with the forthrightness Emtee Dempsey attributed to her when she confronted her supposed police escort in the Northwestern library. Emtee Dempsey had the folded morning paper safely under one pudgy hand, clearly her prop for the ultimate revelation. But there was so much to be said before she got to it.

“Regina Fastnekker! Do I remember that one,” Katherine said. “My pretrial interviews?” She looked around the table. “I was nominated for a Pulitzer, for heaven’s sake.”

“Do you still have them?”

Katherine smiled sweetly. “My scrapbooks are up to date, thank you.”

Benjamin Rush wanted to know where Regina was now. Katherine, to her shame, had not followed further the Fastnekker saga once the girl had been safely put away. Emtee Dempsey told them of the woman’s supposed prison conversion.

“ ‘Supposed’ in the sense of ‘alleged.’ I do not mean to express scepticism. Some of the greatest saints got their start in prison.”

“I won’t ask you how many lawyers have been canonized,” Mr. Rush said and sipped his mineral water.

Katherine said, “Conversion isn’t a strong enough word for the turnaround that girl would have needed. I have seldom talked with anyone I considered so, well, diabolic. She seemed to have embraced evil.”

“ ‘Evil be thou my good,’ ” murmured Emtee Dempsey.

“Who said that?”

“Milton’s Satan, of course, don’t tease. I must read every word you wrote about her, Katherine. I suppose the police will know where she now is.”

“I suspect they may be talking with her right now.”

“The bombing is in her style,” Rush said. “Ominously so. It is why I came directly here. Katherine will know better than I that the Fastnekker crowd had a quite unique modus operandi. There was always a series of bombings, the first a kind of announcement, defiant, and then came the big bang. What I am saying is that, far from being out of danger, you may be in far more danger now than before the unfortunate destruction of your means of transportation. If, that is, we are truly dealing with Regina Fastnekker and company.”

“Company? How many were there?”

“It’s all in my stories,” Katherine said. “I wonder why I didn’t read of her big conversion.”

“If it is genuine, she might not have wanted it to be a media event.”

“Well, you have certainly had some morning. But, as Benjamin says, the excitement may be just beginning. I suggest that you go at once to the lake place in Indiana.”

“No, no, no,” Rush intervened. He thought that for them to be in such a remote place, where the police were, well, local, far from taking the nuns out of danger, might well expose them fatally.

“We have to assume that you are being watched at this very moment.”

“Isn’t it far more likely that the next attempt will be on Richard’s family?”

Katherine said, “I wonder who that phony policeman was?”

That was Emtee Dempsey’s cue. “I was coming to that,” she said, unfolding the paper. “This is the man.”

“But that’s Michael Layton,” Mr. Rush said in shocked tones.

“Ah, you know him.”

“Sister, that boy, that young man, disappeared several years ago. Vanished into thin air.”

“That’s in the story, Benjamin.”

“But I know the Laytons. I knew Michael. I can’t tell you what a traumatic experience it was for them.”

Emtee Dempsey turned to Katherine. “Was this young man part of Regina Fastnekker’s company?”

“That’s not possible,” said Mr. Rush.

“Why on earth would he impersonate a policeman?”

“Sister Kimberly, please call your brother and tell him that Michael Layton was the one following you around of late.”

It was Katherine who summed it all up, despite the evident pain it caused Benjamin Rush. Alerted by what the young man following Sister Kimberly had said, Emtee Dempsey had coaxed from Richard his belief that Regina Fastnekker was more likely than anyone else to seek to do him harm after she was released from jail. She had masked her intention by undergoing a religious conversion while in prison, and some time had elapsed since she had regained her freedom. Richard himself had been lulled into the belief that Miss Butterfingers had gotten over her desire for revenge. She chose to strike where it would be least expected, at Richard’s sister. Accordingly, one of the gang followed Kim around and, when confronted, disarmingly claimed to be part of a police effort to protect Richard’s family. This morning, their automobile was blown up, a typical first move in the Fastnekker modus operandi.

By this point in Katherine’s explanation, Emtee Dempsey had plunged her face into her hands. But Benjamin Rush took it up.

“Michael was then killed for warning Sister Kimberly that she was in danger.” The lawyer’s spirit rose at the thought of his friends’ son exhibiting his natural goodness at such peril to his life.

“What a tissue of conjecture,” Emtee Dempsey observed, looking around at her friends. “In the first place, we have no reason at all to think that Michael Layton was connected with this Fastnekker terrorist gang.”

“Of course we don’t,” Benjamin Rush said, switching field.

“Nor do we have any reason to think this is the work of the Fastnekker gang. The idea that her religious conversion was a ploy must deal with the fact that she tried to keep it quiet.”

“The sneakiest publicity of all,” Joyce said.

“Salinger,” Kim agreed.

“What?” Emtee Dempsey looked at her two young colleagues as if they had lost their minds. But she waved away whatever it was they referred to. “We know only two things. First, that a young man named Michael Layton, who had been missing for years, who was lately following Sister Kimberly and claimed to be a policeman when she spoke to him, is dead. Second, we know that our automobile has been destroyed.”

“Our insurance company will probably suspect us of that,” Joyce said.

Benjamin Rush rose. “You are absolutely right, Sister. I have entered into this speculative conversation, but I must repeat that I cannot believe Michael Layton could possibly be involved in anything wrong or criminal. Let us hope that the police will be able to cast light on what has happened.”

4

It was not only those on Walton Street who were reminded of the Fastnekker gang by the exploding Volkswagen. An editorial in the rival of Katherine’s paper expressed the hope that Chicago, and indeed the country, was not on the threshold of a renewal of the terrorism of a decade ago. Readers were reminded of the various groups, including that led by Regina Fastnekker, and the fear was stated that the destruction of the car was only a prelude to something worse. How many like the unfortunate Michael Layton, products of good homes, having all the advantages of American society, suddenly dropped from sight only to turn up, incredibly, as terrorists? The editorial immediately added that there was absolutely no evidence of any connection of Layton with any terrorist efforts, though the explanation he had given of following a member of a Chicago policeman’s family and the fact that he had been found in a building that had exploded from unknown causes would doubtless prompt some to make that connection. Lieutenant Richard Moriarity had led the investigation that resulted in the successful prosecution of Regina Fastnekker.

Katherine Senski threw the paper down on Emtee Dempsey’s desk and fell into a chair. “That is completely and absolutely irresponsible. It is one thing to sit among friends and try to tie things together, but to publish such random thoughts in a supposedly respectable newspaper, well...” She threw up her hands, at a loss for words.

But Katherine’s reaction was nothing to that of Benjamin Rush. Under his distinguished snow-white hair, his patrician features were rosy with rage.

“It is an outrageous accusation against a man who cannot defend himself.”

“Perhaps the Layton family will sue.”

“I am on my way there now. That is precisely what they want to do. Alas, I shall advise them not to. The editorial cunningly fends off the accusation of libel by qualifying or seeming to take back what it had just said. When you add the First Amendment, there simply is no case. Legally. Morally, whoever wrote this is a scoundrel. I now understand the feelings of clients who have urged me to embark on a course I knew could end only in failure. One wants to tilt at windmills!”

“You will be talking to the Laytons today?”

An immaculate cuff appeared from the sleeve of Benjamin Rush’s navy blue suit as he lifted his arm, and then a watch whose unostentatiousness was in a way ostentatious came into view. “In half an hour. I have come to ask you a favor. Actually, to ask Sister Kimberly.”

“Anything,” Kim said. No member of the Order of Martha and Mary could be unaware of their debt to Benjamin Rush. He had saved this house at the time of the great dissolution and had insured that an endowment would enable the order to continue, in however reduced a form.

“It would be particularly consoling for the Laytons if they could speak to someone who saw Michael as recently as you have.”

The request made Kim uneasy. What if the Laytons wished to derive consolation from the fact that it was a nun who had spoken to their son? Kim herself had wondered if he had not perhaps thought that she could be of help, directly or indirectly, in some difficulty.

“I should tell you that while Melissa Layton is quite devout, her husband Geoffrey is a member of the Humanist Society and regards all religion as a blight.”

“Find out which of them the son favored, Sister.”

Having already agreed to help Mr. Rush, there was nothing Kim could do, but she was profoundly unwilling to talk to grieving parents about a son they had not seen in years and to whom she had spoken only once, in somewhat odd circumstances. Mr. Rush’s car stood at the curb where the Volkswagen had always been, but the contrast could not have been greater. Long and grey with tinted glass, it seemed to require several spaces. Marvin, Mr. Rush’s chunky driver, opened the door and Kim got in, and with Mr. Rush at seemingly the opposite end of the sofa, they drove off in comfort to the Laytons.

On the way, Mr. Rush told her a few more things about the Lay-tons, but nothing could have prepared her adequately for the next several hours. Kim had somehow gotten the impression that the Laytons would be Mr. Rush’s age, which was foolish when she considered that the son had been closer to her age, but Mrs. Layton was a shock. She was beautiful, her auburn hair worn shoulder length, her face as smooth as a girl’s, and the black and silver housecoat, floor length, billowed about her, heightening the effect she made as she crossed the room to them. Kim felt dowdy in her sensible suit, white blouse, and veil, and it didn’t help to remind herself that her costume befitted her vocation. Melissa Layton tipped her cheek for Mr. Rush’s kiss and extended a much braceleted arm to Kim.

“Sister.” Both hands enclosed Kim’s and her violet eyes scanned Kim’s face. “Ben assured us that you would come.”

Geoffrey Layton rose from his chair, nodded to Rush, and gave a little bow to Kim, but his eyes were fastened on her veil.

“Come,” Mrs. Layton said. She had not released Kim’s hand and led her to a settee where they could sit side by side. “Tell me of your meeting with Michael.” And suddenly the beauty was wrenched into sorrow and the woman began to sob helplessly. Now Kim held her hand. Mrs. Layton’s tears made Kim feel a good deal more comfortable in this vast room with its period furniture, large framed pictures, and magnificent view.

Mrs. Layton emerged from her bout of grief even more beautiful than before, teardrops glistening in her eyes, but composed. Mr. Layton and Mr. Rush stood in front of the seated women while Kim told her story.

“How long had he been following you around?”

“For several days.”

“That you know of,” Mrs. Layton said.

“Yes. I spoke of it with the other sisters. At first it was just a nuisance, but then it became disturbing. We decided that I should talk to him. On Wednesday morning...”

“Wednesday,” Mrs. Layton repeated, and her expression suggested she was trying to remember what she had been doing at the time this young woman beside her had actually spoken to her long-lost son.

“He said he knew I was a nun.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Layton.

“I do not wear my veil when I go to Northwestern.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“Could he have seen you with it on?”

“I suppose.”

“But what did he say?” Mrs. Layton asked. Kim was aware that another woman had come into the room, her hair and coloring the same as Mrs. Layton’s, though without the dramatic beauty. Mrs. Layton turned to see what Kim was looking at. “Janet, come here. This is Sister Kimberly who talked with your brother Michael.”

The daughter halved the distance between them, but as Kim talked on, answering questions that became more and more impossible, about the Layton son, Janet came closer. The parents wanted to know what he looked like, how he acted, did she think he was suffering from amnesia, on and on, and from time to time when Kim glanced at Janet she got a look of sympathy. Finally the younger woman stepped past Mr. Rush.

“Thank you so much for telling us about your meeting with Michael.” Comparing the two women, Kim could now see that, youthful as Mrs. Layton looked, she looked clearly older than her daughter, who made no effort to be attractive.

The Laytons now turned to Mr. Rush to insist that he bring suit against the editorialist who had slandered their son. Janet led Kim away.

“There’s coffee in the kitchen.”

“Oh good.”

“You realize that all this is to put off the evil day. We have not seen Michael’s body. It is a question whether we will. As a family. I certainly intend to.”

There was both strength and genuineness in Janet Layton, and Kim could see, when they were sitting on stools in the kitchen sipping coffee, that with the least of efforts Janet could rival her mother in beauty. If she didn’t, it was because she felt no desire to conceal her mourning.

“You’re a nun?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to be a nun once. I suppose most girls think of it.”

“Very briefly.”

“What’s it like?”

“Come visit us. We have a house on Walton Street.”

“Near the Newberry?”

“Just blocks away. Do you go there?”

She nodded. “What is so weird is that I also use the Northwestern library. What if I had gone there Wednesday?”

“I hope I made it clear that your brother seemed perfectly all right to me. But then I thought he was the policeman he said he was and that changed everything. He looked the part.”

“It’s cruel after years of thinking him dead to find out he was alive on Wednesday, in a place I go to, but now is truly dead.” Her lip trembled and she looked away.

“He just disappeared?”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak for a moment. “One day he left the house for school and never came back. No note, no indication he was going. He took nothing with him. He just ceased to exist, or so it seemed. The police searched, my parents hired private investigators. My father, taking the worst thing he could think of, suspected the Moonies. But not one single trace was found.”

“On his way to school?”

“Chicago. He was an economics major.”

“How awful.”

“I don’t know how my parents bore up under this. My mother of course never lets herself go physically, but inside she has been devastated. It is the first time my father confronted something he couldn’t do anything effective about. That shook him almost as much as the loss of Michael.”

“Mr. Rush says your mother is very devout.”

“Let me show you something.”

They went rapidly through the house, which was far larger than Kim’s first impression of it. On an upper floor as they came down a hallway stood a small altar. There was a statue of perhaps three feet in height of Our Blessed Lady and a very large candle in a wrought-iron holder burning before it. Janet turned and widened her eyes significantly as she indicated the shrine.

“Mother’s. For the return of her lost son.”

There was nothing to say to that. Janet went into a room and waited for Kim to join her.

“This is just the way it was when he disappeared. Michael’s room. Maybe now Mother will agree to...”

No need to develop the thought. No doubt Mrs. Layton would consider it an irreverence to get rid of her son’s clothes and other effects, even though she knew now he was dead. A computer stood on the desk, covered with a clear plastic hood. A bookshelf the top row of which contained works in or related to economics. The other shelves were a hodgepodge, largely paperbacks — mysteries, westerns, science fiction, classics. Michael Layton had either unsettled literary tastes or universal interests.

“The police checked over this room and the private investigators Daddy hired also looked it over. They found no indication Mike intended to leave, and of course that introduced a note of hope. That he’d been kidnapped, for instance. But no demands were made. Every investigation left us where we’d been — with something that made utterly no sense.”

“It must have been awful.”

“I am glad the waiting is over, after all these years. Does that sound terrible?”

“No.”

“I wanted you to see this. I wanted you to know that there are no clues here.”

Kim smiled. “You’ve heard of Sister Mary Teresa?”

Janet nodded.

As they went downstairs, Kim reflected that if Janet was right, and why wouldn’t she be, the explanation for Michael Layton’s murder would have to be sought in what he had been doing in the years since he left his home for the last time. And no one seemed to know where on earth he had been.

5

“Miss Butterfingers is going to call on us,” Joyce whispered when Kim returned to Walton Street.

“Wow.”

“Just what I said to Emtee Dempsey.”

“Yes,” Sister Mary Teresa said, when Kim went into the study and asked about the impending visit. “Miss Fastnekker called half an hour ago and asked if she might come by. I am trying to read these articles of Katherine’s before our visitor arrives. Here are the ones I’ve read.”

Kim took the photocopies and began to read them as she crossed to a chair. What a delight they were. This was Katherine at the height of her powers, the woman who had been the queen of Chicago journalism longer than it was polite to mention. Reading those old stories acquainted Kim with the kind of person she preferred not to know. The Regina Fastnekker Katherine had interviewed intensively and written about with rare evocative power was a prophet of doom, an angel of destruction, a righteous scourge of mankind. At twenty-two years old, she had concluded that human beings are hopelessly corrupt, there is nothing to redeem what is laughingly called civilization. Any judgment that what she had done was illegal or immoral proceeded from a system so corrupt as to render the charges comic. Katherine described Regina as a nihilist, one who preferred nothing to everything that was. It was not that the world had this or that flaw, the world was the flaw.

“I am glad you don’t have possession of hydrogen weapons,” Katherine had observed.

“Atomic destruction is the solution. Inevitably one day it will arrive. I have been anticipating that awful self-judgment of mankind on itself by the actions I have taken.”

“Who appointed you to this destructive task?”

“I did.”

“Have you ever doubted your judgment?”

“Not on these matters.”

“From the point of view of society, it makes sense to lock you up, wouldn’t you say?”

“Society will regret what has been done to me.”

Katherine had clearly been as awed as Kim was now that a woman who had done such deeds, who had killed by accident rather than design, should continue to speak with such conviction that she was somehow not implicated in the universal guilt of the race to which she belonged.

“You are employing a corrupt logic,” Miss Butterfingers had replied.

Katherine had concluded that the only meaning “corrupt” seemed to have was “differing from Regina Fastnekker.”

“What a sweetheart,” Kim commented when she had finished.

“We must not forget that this was the Regina of some years ago. On the phone she seemed very nice.”

“Did you tell her the police would know if she visited us?”

“I saw no reason to say such a thing.”

Emtee Dempsey had invited Regina to come to Walton Street on the assumption that she was now a changed woman, radically different from the terrorist so graphically portrayed by Katherine Senski in her newspaper stories. If she was wrong, if Regina had been behind the blowing up of the Volkswagen and if her custom was to announce a serious deed by a lesser one, Emtee Dempsey could be inviting their assassin to visit. She did not have to wonder what Richard would say if asked about the advisability of admitting Regina to their home.

The woman who stood at the door when Kim went to answer the bell wore a denim skirt that reached her ankles and an oversize cableknit sweater; her hair was pulled back severely on her head and held with a rubber band. Pale blue eyes stared unblinkingly at Kim.

“I have come to see Sister Dempsey.”

There was no mistaking that this was Regina Fastnekker, despite the changes that had occurred in her since the photos that accompanied Katherine’s stories. Kim opened the door and took Regina down the hall to the study. Her back tingled as she walked, as if she awaited some unexpected blow to fall. But she made it to the study door without incident.

“Sister Mary Teresa, this is Regina Fastnekker.”

The old nun did not rise but watched closely as her guest came to the desk. Regina put out her hand and the old nun stood as she took it.

“Welcome to our home.”

“I must tell you that I consider the Catholic Church to be the corruption of Christianity and that it is only by a return to the gospels that we can be saved. One person at a time.”

“Ecclesia semper reformanda.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You express a sentiment as old as Christianity itself. Do you know the story of the order St. Francis founded?”

“St. Francis is someone I admire.”

“I was sure you would. Francis preached holy poverty, personifying it, calling it Lady Poverty, his beloved. After his death, his followers disputed what this meant. Could they, for example, own a house and live in it, or did poverty require them to own absolutely nothing and rely each day on the Lord to provide? Did they own the clothes they wore, since of course each one wore his own clothes?”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“It is possible to make Christianity so pure that it ceases to be.”

“It is also possible to falsify it so much that it ceases to be.”

“Of course.”

“You sound as if you had won an argument.”

“I wasn’t sure we were having one. I am told that you have become a Christian.”

“That makes it sound like something I did. It was done to me. It is a grace of which I am entirely unworthy.”

“Do you know Michael Layton?”

The sudden switch seemed to surprise Regina. She rearranged her skirt and pushed up the sleeve of her sweater.

“I knew him.”

“Before your conversion?”

“Before I went to prison, yes.”

“Have you any idea who killed him?”

“I came here to-tell you that I have not.”

“Have you seen him since you were released?”

“That is the question the police put to me in a dozen different ways.”

“And how did you answer?”

“Yes and no.”

“How yes?”

“I saw his photograph in the paper.”

“Ah.”

“It is my intention always to tell the truth, even when it seems trivial.”

“An admirable ideal. It is one I share.”

There was not a trace of irony in Emtee Dempsey’s tone, doubtless because she felt none. Her ability so to speak that she did not technically tell a lie, however much others might mislead themselves when listening to her, was something Kim tried not to be shocked at. Whenever they discussed the matter, the old nun’s defense — if it could even be called a defense — was unanswerable, but Kim in her heart of hearts felt that Emtee Dempsey should be a good deal more candid than she was.

“The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” she had reminded the old nun.

“A noble if empty phrase.”

“Empty?”

“What is the whole truth about the present moment? Only God knows. I use the phrase literally. Since we cannot know the whole truth we cannot speak it.”

“We can speak the whole truth that we know.”

“Alas, that too is beyond our powers. Even as we speak, what we know expands and increases and we shall never catch up with it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Only by what you say, my dear, and I am afraid that does not make much sense.”

“I didn’t invent the phrase.”

“You have at least that defense.”

But now, speaking to Regina Fastnekker, Emtee Dempsey seemed to be suggesting that she herself sought always to tell the whole truth. If they were alone, Kim might have called her on this. But at the moment, she watched with fascination the alertness with which Regina listened to the old nun. In her articles, Katherine had described the ingénue expression Regina wore when she pronounced her nihilistic doctrines. Her beliefs might have changed, but her expression had not. Now she looked out at the world with the innocence of one who had been saved by religious conversion, but nonetheless, however much she had changed, Regina Fastnekker was still on the side of the saved.

“What I have come to tell you is that I did not blow up your car, and I have no intention to harm you.”

“I am glad to hear that.”

“I tell you because it would be reasonable to think I had, given my sinful past. I am still a sinner, of course, but I have chosen Jesus for my personal savior and have with the help of His grace put behind me such deeds.”

“You have been blessed.”

“So have you. If I had not been converted I might very well have conceived such a scheme and put it into operation.”

“And killed me?”

“The loved ones of those who put me in prison.”

“A dreadful thought.”

Regina said nothing for a moment, and when she spoke it was with great deliberateness. “I have never killed anyone. I do not say this to make myself seem less terrible than I was. But I never took another’s life.”

“I had thought someone died when an explosion occurred in your apartment.”

“That is true.”

“And you were the cause of that explosion.”

“No. It was an accident.”

“You express yourself with a great deal of precision.”

“Praise the Lord.”

Seldom had the phrase been spoken with less intonation. Regina put her hands on her knees and then rose in an almost stately manner.

“I challenge you to accept the Lord as your savior.”

“My dear young lady, I took the vows of religion nearly fifty years ago. I took Jesus as my spiritual spouse, promising poverty, chastity, and obedience. But I take your suggestion in good grace and shall endeavor to follow your advice.”

Regina Fastnekker, apparently having no truth, however trivial, to utter, said nothing. She bowed and Kim took her to the door.

“Thank you for visiting us.”

“Did you too take those vows?”

“Yes. But not fifty years ago.”

Regina Fastnekker’s smile was all the more brilliant for being so rare. Her laughter had a pure soprano quality. Lithe, long-limbed, her full skirt lending a peculiar dignity to her passage, she went across the porch, descended the steps, and disappeared up the walk.

6

Two days later, in the Northwestern University library, Kim looked up from the book she was reading to find Janet Layton smiling down on her.

“Can we talk?” she whispered.

Kim, startled to see the sister where she had had such a dramatic encounter with the brother, got up immediately. Outside, Janet lit up a cigarette.

“There is something I should have told you the other day and didn’t. In fact I lied to you. I have known all along that Mike was still alive.”

“You did!”

“He telephoned me in my dorm room within a month of his disappearance. The first thing he said was that he did not want my parents to know of the call.”

“And you agreed?”

“I didn’t tell them. I don’t think I would have in any case. You would have to know how terribly they took Mike’s disappearance, particularly at the beginning. If I had told them, they would have wanted proof. There was none I could give. And of course I had no idea then that it would turn into a permanent disappearance. I don’t know that he himself thought so at the time.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted some computer disks from his room.”

She had complied, putting the disks in a plastic bag and the bag in a trash container on a downtown Chicago corner. She walked away, as she had been instructed, but with the idea of hiding and watching the container. She took up her station inside a bookstore and watched the container. Clerks asked if they could be of help and she shook her head, her eyes never leaving the container. After an hour, the manager came and she moved to a drugstore, certain her eyes had never left the container. After four hours of vigil, she was out of patience. She decided to take the disks from the container and wait for another phone call from her brother. The plastic bag containing the disks was gone.

“I felt like a bag lady, rummaging around in that trash, people turning to look at me. But it was definitely gone. Someone must have taken it within minutes of my putting it there, while I was walking away.”

“And your brother called again?”

“Months later. I asked him if he got the disks. He said yes. That was all. His manner made me glad I’d done what I had.”

Before leaving the disks in the container, Janet had made copies of them. She opened her purse and took out a package.

“Would you give these to Sister Mary Teresa?”

“You should give them to the police.”

“I will leave that up to her. If that’s what she thinks should be done with them, all right.”

“Did you read the disks?”

“I tried to once. I don’t know what program they’re written on, but I typed them out at the DOS prompt. They looked like notes on reading to me. The fact that Mike wanted them means only that they were important to him. Frankly, I’d rather not admit that I’ve heard from Mike over the years. My parents would never understand my silence.”

Kim had difficulty understanding it herself, Emtee Dempsey, on the other hand, found it unsurprising.

“But of course it would have been unsurprising if she told them too. Singular choices do not always have moral necessity. There were doubtless good reasons for either course of action and she chose the one she did.”

“What will you do with them?”

“What the young lady suggested. Study their contents. Can you print them out for me?”

Before she did anything with the disks, Kim took the same precaution Janet had and made copies of them. There were three disks, of the five-and-a-half-inch size, but only two were full, the third had only twelve thousand bytes saved on it. Running a directory on them, Kim jotted down the file names.

BG&E.one

BG&E.two

TSZ.one

TSZ.two

TSZ.tre

That was the contents of the first disk. The second was similarly uninformative.

PENSEES.UNO

PENSEES.DOS

PENSEES.TRE

The third disk had one file, AAV.

The files had not been written on Notabene, the program Kim preferred, nor on either Word or WordPerfect. Kim printed them from ASCI and began reading eagerly as they emerged from the printer but quickly, as Janet had, found her interest flag. Michael Layton seemed to have devised a very personal kind of shorthand. “Para fn eth no es vrd, pero an attempt para vanqr los grads.”

Let Emtee Dempsey decipher that if she could. The fact that Michael Layton wrote in a way difficult, if not impossible, to follow suggested that the disks contained information of interest. The old nun spread the sheets before her, smoothing them out, a look of anticipation on her pudgy face. Kim left her to her task.

The old nun was preoccupied at table and after night prayers returned to her study. At one in the morning, Kim came downstairs to find Emtee Dempsey brooding over the printout. She looked up at Kim and blinked.

“Any luck?”

“You are right to think that decoding always depends on finding one little key. Whether it is a matter of luck, I do not know.”

“Have you found the key?”

“No.”

“I couldn’t make head nor tails of it.”

“Oh, the first two disks present no problem. They are paraphrases of Nietzsche.”

“You mean you can understand those pages?”

“Only to the degree that Nietzsche himself is intelligible. The young man paraphrased passages from the mad philosopher and interspersed his own comments, most of them jejune.”

“How did you know it was Nietzsche?”

“Beyond Good and Evil. Thus Spake Zarathustra.”

“And the second is Pascal?”

“Unfortunately no. The thoughts are young Layton’s, thoughts of unrelieved tedium and banality. Do you know the Pensieri of Leopardi? Giacomo Leopardi?”

“I don’t even know who he is.”

“Was. His work of that name is a collection of pessimistic and misanthropic jottings, puerile, adolescent. If a poet of genius, however troubled, was capable of writing such silliness, we should not perhaps be too harsh with young Layton.”

“What is on the third disk?”

She shook her head. “Those few pages are written in a bad imitation of Finnegan’s Wake, a kind of macaronic relying on a variety of languages imperfectly understood. I had hoped that the first disks would provide me with the clue needed to understand the third, but so far this is...”

An explosion shook the house, bringing Emtee Dempsey to her feet. But Kim was down the hall ahead of her and dashed upstairs. As she came into the upstairs hall, she saw that a portion of the left wall as well as her door had been blown away. The startled face of Joyce appeared through plaster cloud.

“Strike two,” she said.

7

Sister Mary Teresa wanted to take a good look around Kim’s room before calling the police, although why the neighborhood had failed to be shaken awake by the explosion was explained by the incessant street racket that did not really cease until three or sometimes four in the morning. The explosion of Kim’s computer would have been only one noise among many to those outside, however it had filled the house. The wall that had been blown into the hall was the one against which Kim’s computer had stood.

“Why would it do a thing like that?” the old nun asked.

“I’ve never heard of it before.”

“Was it on?”

“I never turn it off.” Kim explained the theory behind this.

They puzzled over the event for perhaps fifteen minutes before Kim called Richard, relying on him to alert the appropriate experts. They came immediately, a tall woman with flying straight hair and her companion whose thick glasses seemed to have become part of his face. They picked around among the debris, eyes bright with interest. This was something new to them as well.

“Computers don’t blow up,” the girl said.

“There had to be a bomb.” Behind the thick lenses her companion’s eyes widened.

“When did you last use the machine?”

“I printed out some disks.”

“Any sign of them?”

They were in the plastic box that had bounced off the far wall and landed on her bed. She opened it and showed them the five disks it contained.

“Five!” she exclaimed. “There are only five.”

“Only?”

She showed them the three copies she had made, and two of the disks she had been given by Janet Layton. And then she remembered.

“I left the third in the drive.”

“Can a computer disk be a bomb?” Emtee Dempsey asked.

Her question brought amused smiles to the two experts. The girl said, “Anything can be a bomb.”

“Michael Layton delivered his second bomb,” Emtee Dempsey said. “Posthumously.”

“Janet Layton gave them to me,” Kim reminded her.

“Yes. Yes, she did.”

Richard came and kept them up until three going over what had happened. Kim let Emtee Dempsey tell the story she herself had heard from Janet Layton. She went over in her mind the conversation she had had with Janet at the Layton home and then what she had said at Northwestern that afternoon. If Janet had told her the truth, the disks she had given Kim were copies of those her brother made, rather than his originals. If one of those disks had been made into a bomb, it had to have been by Janet. But why?

“I’ll ask her why. And I don’t intend to wait for daylight either.”

The next time Kim saw Janet Layton was under police auspices. The violet eyes widened when Kim came in.

“Oh.”

“I’m alive.”

“Thank God.”

She rose and reached a hand across the table. Mastering her aversion, Kim took the hand. Janet turned to Richard.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was unharmed?”

“I don’t talk to people who don’t talk to me.”

Janet talked now. What she had told Kim was true as far as it went; well, almost. She had not, years ago, made copies of the disks her brother asked her to bring, but everything else had happened as she had said.

“Regina told me to tell you what I did.”

“Regina Fastnekker!”

Janet nodded. “After Michael’s death, she called me. She asked me if I remembered delivering some computer disks to Michael long ago. Of course I did. She said she had them and felt they might help solve the mystery of Michael’s death. She asked if I would pass them on to you with just the message I gave you. You could decide, or Sister Mary Teresa could decide, what to do with them.”

Richard made a face. “She knew she could rely on the nosiness of you know who.”

But he was on his feet and heading out of the room. “I’m going to let you go,” he said to Janet.

“Come with me,” Kim said. There was no substitute for Emtee Dempsey’s hearing this story from Janet herself.

But the old nun merely nodded impatiently as Janet spoke. Her interest was entirely in Regina Fastnekker. Katherine, having heard of the second explosion on Walton Street, hurried over, but Janet stayed on, far from being the center of attention. Katherine was almost triumphant when she heard the news that the supposedly converted Regina Fastnekker had used Janet to deliver a second bomb to Walton Street.

“The brazen thing,” she fumed, a grim smile on her face.

“You think she blew up our car?”

“Of course. Your car, Michael Layton, and very nearly Sister Kimberly. Oh, I never believe these stories of radical conversion. People just don’t change character that easily.”

“She denied it, Katherine.”

“It’s part of her new persona. But the gall of the woman, to use the same pattern she always used before.”

“As if she were drawing attention to herself.”

“More insolence,” Katherine said.

Regina Fastnekker denied quite calmly through hours of interrogation that she had killed anybody. Richard, when he brought this news to Walton Street, regarded it as just what one would expect.

“But she does talk to you?”

“Talk?” He shook his head. “She goes on and on, like a TV preacher. How she has promised the Lord to tell the truth and that is what she is doing.”

“I suppose you have gone over the place where Regina lives?”

Richard nodded. “Nothing.”

“And this does not shake your confidence that she is responsible for these bombings?”

“You know what I think? I think she sat in prison all those years and planned this down to the minute. But she wasn’t going to risk being sent to prison again. She would do it and do it in a way that I would know she had done it and yet would not be able to prove she had.”

“Can you?”

“We will. We will.”

Katherine wrote a feature on the Backsliding Miss Butterfingers, in the words of the header. The veteran reporter permitted herself some uncharacteristic forays into what made someone like Regina Fastnekker tick. Prison may not breed criminals, her argument ran, but it receives a criminal and releases him or her worse than he or she was before.

“Wouldn’t ‘he’ be sufficient?”

“I’ve told you of our manual of style?”

“Style is the man,” Emtee Dempsey purred. “Would you be allowed to write that?”

Katherine seemed to be blushing beneath her powdered cheeks. “ ‘Style is the woman’ is the way it will appear in my tomorrow’s article.”

“Et tu, Katherine? Didn’t Regina take credit for what she had done when she was arrested before?”

“She did.”

“And now she continues to deny what she is accused of?”

“ ‘I have not touched a bomb since I left prison.’ That’s it verbatim.”

“Gloves?”

“I thought of that. Something in the careful way she speaks suggested that I do. ‘As far as I know I have never been in the vicinity of an explosive device since leaving prison.’ ”

“What does she say about what Janet Layton told us?”

“She denies it.”

“How?”

“She says it is a lie.”

“Verbatim?”

“Verbatim.”

“Hmmm.”

The following morning when they were returning from St. Matthews on foot, creating a sensation, Emtee Dempsey suddenly stopped and clapped her hands.

“Of course!” she cried, and began to laugh. When she set off again, it was almost skippingly, and her great starched headdress waggled and shook. Joyce and Kim exchanged a look. The mind is a delicate thing.

Emtee Dempsey bounded up the porch steps and inside removed the shawl from her shoulders.

“First breakfast, then call Richard.”

“Why not ask him for breakfast?” Joyce said facetiously.

“No. Afterward. Let’s try for ten o’clock, and we want everyone here. The Laytons, Katherine, Regina Fastnekker, and of course Richard.”

“Regina Fastnekker is under arrest.”

“That is why we must convey the invitation through Richard.”

“He is not going to bring a mad bomber to the scene of the crime.”

“Nonsense. I’ll talk to him if necessary.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Richard said, “but it’s not necessary, it’s impossible, as in it necessarily can’t happen. I am not going to help her put on one of her amateur theatricals.”

“You have every reason to object,” Emtee Dempsey said, already on the phone in her study. “But wouldn’t you like to clear this matter up?”

“Only what is obscure can be cleared up. This is simple as sin. We have the one responsible for those bombings.”

“There’s where you’re wrong, Richard.”

“How in hell can you know that?”

“The provenance of my knowledge is elsewhere. I realized what had happened when we were returning from Mass less than an hour ago.”

“Not on your life, Sister Mary Teresa. And I mean it.”

With that outburst, Kim was sure the old nun had won. Richard had to bluster and fulminate but it was not in his nature to deny such a request. Too often in the past, as he would never admit, such a gathering at Walton Street had proved a breakthrough. When he did agree, it was on his own terms.

“I will be bringing her by,” he said, as if changing the subject. “I want her to see that upstairs bedroom and what’s left of the computer.”

“That’s a splendid idea. Ten o’clock would be best for us.”

Mr. Rush agreed to bring the Laytons, and wild horses could not have kept Katherine away.

8

Benjamin Rush introduced the Laytons to Sister Mary Teresa, who squeezed the grieving mother’s hand while Geoffrey Layton tried not to stare at the old nun’s habit. He looked around the room as if fearful of what signs of superstition he might find, but a man who could get used to the shrine in the hallway of his own house had little to fear on Walton Street. Katherine swept in, a glint in her eye. At the street door she’d whispered that she couldn’t wait to see how Emtee Dempsey broke the shell of Miss Butterfingers.

Kim said nothing. It was unnervingly clear that Emtee Dempsey meant to exonerate the convicted terrorist. Katherine might soon be witnessing the first public embarrassment of her old friend, rather than another triumph. Janet was in the kitchen talking with Joyce, so Kim answered the door when Richard arrived. Regina Fastnekker stood beside him, hands joined in front of her, linked with cuffs, but her expression was serene. Behind them were two of Richard’s colleagues, Gleason and O’Connell, shifting their weight and looking up and down the street. Kim stepped aside and they trooped in.

“Okay if we just go upstairs?”

“The others are in the living room.”

Richard ignored that and proceeded up the stairs with his prisoner. O’Connell leaned close to Kim. “Who’s here?”

“I’ll introduce you.”

Gleason tugged O’Connell’s arm and shook his head warningly. They would stay right where they were.

When Richard came into the living room, one hand on Regina’s elbow, he feigned surprise at the people gathered there.

“I’m here for an on-site inspection of the bombing,” he announced to the far wall.

Mrs. Layton was staring with horror at Regina Fastnekker and her husband looked murderously at the expressionless terrorist. Regina had an announcement of her own.

“Your automobile was blown up by Michael Layton,” she said to Sister Mary Teresa.

“Get her out of here!” Geoffrey Layton cried. “Better yet, we’ll go.”

“Wait,” Emtee Dempsey said. “Let us hear what Regina has to say.”

She repeated, “Michael Layton blew up your car. I called him as soon as I heard of it on the news.” She moved closer to the old nun. “He despised me for being born-again. He meant to force my hand.”

Geoffrey Layton sneered. “He blew up their car and then blew up himself and then blew up the sisters’ computer? Is that your story?”

“Did you kill Michael Layton?” Sister Mary Teresa asked Regina.

“No.”

The old nun shifted her hands on the arms of the chair. “Did you do anything that resulted in the death of Michael Layton?”

Regina started. But she did not answer. She looked warily, almost fearfully at the old nun.

“I know you express yourself with great precision,” Emtee Dempsey said. “One who has vowed always to tell the truth must be most precise in what he says. I ask you again. Did you do anything that...”

“Yes!”

A smile broke out on Richard’s face and he looked as if he might actually hug Emtee Dempsey.

“But you didn’t murder him?”

“No.”

“Richard, let our guest sit down so that she can speak at her leisure.”

But Regina shook her head. She preferred to speak standing. “Michael blew up your car, using skills we had learned together. This consisted in planting the device and from a distance activating it. After Michael’s phone call, I drove past his house with a transceiver set at the appropriate frequency.”

“And there was an explosion.”

“Yes.”

“So you killed him!” Richard said.

“No. He killed himself. That radio signal could only harm him if he intended to harm someone else. If a man fires at another and his gun backfires and kills him, has his intended victim killed him or has he killed himself?”

It was a discussion that went on for some time. The general consensus in the room was that Regina was lying, blaming a dead man.

“That’s how she planned it,” Geoffrey Layton said with disgust.

Benjamin Rush sat sunk into himself. Nothing Geoffrey Layton could say would restore his son’s honor.

Emtee Dempsey rose and went to Mrs. Layton who was looking around almost wildly, as if she could not at all understand what was going on. Kim felt much the same way. Her eye met Janet’s and she went to her. How awful this must be for her. But Janet did not want to be consoled.

“I’m leaving,” she said, and started for the kitchen door.

“Wait, my dear.” Surprisingly, Emtee Dempsey was at Kim’s side. She took Janet’s hand authoritatively and led her to Regina.

“Regina Fastnekker,” she said, “did you give this girl computer disks to pass on to me?”

Regina looked surprised for the second time.

“No.”

“You are not dissembling, are you?”

Regina peered at Janet. “Is that how it was done?”

Janet lunged at Regina, who lifted her manacled hands and staved off the blow. By then Emtee Dempsey had again grasped Janet’s wrist and Richard had come to her assistance.

“We’re talking about the device that blew up the computer?”

“She’s the one,” Janet screamed, trying to free herself. “She ruined Michael’s life and he waited for her while she was in jail and out she comes a religious freak. No more terrorism for Miss Butterfingers.”

Janet threw back her head and began to howl in frustration. Her father seemed to age before their eyes and Mrs. Layton recoiled from the spectacle of her out-of-control daughter. Benjamin Rush tried to calm Janet, but she lowered her shoulder and bumped him away, very nearly sending him to the floor. That’s when O’Connell and Gleason came in and subdued her. It seemed a good idea to unshackle Regina and put the cuffs on Janet. Katherine Senski stood, looked around the room, and asked if she could use the study. She had a story to write.

But her story was incomplete until two days later when a defiant but subdued Janet told of rigging the disks in order to turn suspicion firmly on Regina. The woman had ruined Michael’s life and Janet was sure she had killed him as well. By continuing with her brother’s plan, she hoped to send Regina Fastnekker back to prison.

That, as it turned out, was her own destination, however postponed it would be, given the legal counsel her parents hired for her defense. She released a statement saying that she regretted that anything she might have done had threatened the nuns on Walton Street. But by then she had reverted to her story that Regina Fastnekker had persuaded her to deliver the disks.

Questioned about this at the mall where she was urging shoppers to repent and be saved, Regina would say only, “When I was a child I spoke as a child, but now that I have become a man I have put away the things of a child.”

Emtee Dempsey asked Katherine if her paper’s policy would necessitate altering the scriptural passage cited by Miss Butterfingers, but her old friend pretended not to hear.

Content

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

On Lookout by Barbara Owens

A Statesman’s Touch by Robert Barnard

The Sultans of Soul by Doug Allyn

The Man Who Was the God of Love by Ruth Rendell

Splitting Heirs by George Baxt

The Spy with the Icicle Eye by Edward D. Hoch

Jeremy by R. M. Kinder

No Apparent Malice by Terry Mullins

Cereal Killer by Mike Curry

The Blue Bread of Happiness by James Powell

Pre-Mortem by Dixie J. Whitted

Gemini by Gerald Pearce

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File Number Eight by Avram Davidson

They’ll Never Find You by Donald Olson

Fed Up by Marie E. Truitt

Demon Lover by Suzanne Jones

Bly-Bugh by Katherine H. Brooks

The Inheritance by Betty Rowlands

K. K by Liza Cody

Carlotta Green by Alan K. Young

Evelyn Lying There by Anne Wingate

Another Grave Tone by James Holding

Snowball by Reginald Hill

Miss Butterfingers by Monica Quill

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