Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, No. 5. Whole No. 855, November 2012

The Charles Dickens Mystery

by W. Edward Blain

Charles Dickens’ 200th birthday is being celebrated with fanfare in England and many other places this year. Born on February 7, 1812, Dickens is often claimed as one of our own by the mystery community for his creation of characters such as Fagin, “receiver of stolen goods,” and books such as The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Woodberry Forest School teacher and writer W. Edward Blain will be taking eleven of his students to the Dickens House Museum in July in honor of the Dickens bicentenary.

When the police arrived at the Dickens House Museum in London, the body of Ravi Vikram sprawled on the floor of the small bedroom, head against the wall, eyes still open, rope marks still visible on his neck. Driscoll Henley stood nearby, the purple velvet rope used for the strangulation now dropped by his feet. Within minutes the police advised Henley of his rights and handcuffed him, but before they could lead him downstairs to the waiting police car, he protested.

“I’m telling you that I’m a teacher, not a killer,” he said. “Call the head of my boarding school in the United States. She’ll vouch for me.”

“Will she?” said the inspector, a tall man in a brown jacket. “Your hands were on his throat.”

“I was removing the rope,” said Henley. “I was trying to resuscitate him.”

“We can discuss it in good time,” said the inspector. “For now, Mr. Henley, you are under arrest for the murder of Ravi Vikram, actor.”

“Give me five minutes,” said Henley. “While everybody is still here in the building. Five minutes.”

“Why should I do that?” asked the inspector.

“Because I have one advantage over you,” said Henley. “I can eliminate myself as a suspect.”

“You know who killed this man?”

“Five minutes,” said Henley.

The inspector looked at his watch. “Starting now,” he said, and Driscoll Henley desperately began to think. He had no idea who had murdered Ravi Vikram, but he needed to find out during the next four minutes and fifty-eight seconds.

Henley’s ordeal began six months earlier, when Suzanne McClain, the head of Foxborough Hall, summoned him to her paneled office. “How would you like to spend a month in London?” she asked him. “All expenses paid by the school?”

He was delighted by the offer, but he didn’t answer right away. School heads don’t make such offers without ulterior motives.

“There’s a catch, of course,” she said, reading his face, if not his mind. “You have to solve a mystery.” She smiled, and her green jacket set off her red hair in a way that always reminded him of Maureen O’Hara in a John Wayne movie.

“The mystery of the coy headmistress?” he asked, smiling in turn.

“The mystery of Charles Dickens, the playwright.”

Had he misunderstood her? “Dickens was a novelist, not a playwright.”

She shook her head. “He loved the theater all his life. He performed in plays and directed them throughout his career. He mounted four plays successfully in London before he published a novel. Why didn’t Charles Dickens become the great Victorian playwright? That’s what I want you to find out.”

He realized that she was serious. “I’ll do my best,” he said eventually. “But why?”

“Because a prominent alumnus with a passion for Dickens has offered to build a new arts center if someone on the faculty can explain satisfactorily the great writer’s career switch.”

“Wasn’t it simply a matter of money? Playwrights don’t earn much.”

“Our donor doesn’t find that explanation sufficient. You need to saturate yourself in Dickens, come back here, meet with the man, and offer a plausible narrative for why Dickens stopped writing plays. Do that, and I’ll be grateful.”

It had sounded so manageable in January. Now, on a Wednesday in June, he was suspected of murder. How could the day have gone so wrong? It had started auspiciously enough. He had been full of confidence at nine-thirty a.m. as he had tossed a solitary apple into his briefcase and walked from his flat in Russell Square to Doughty Street, a sunny Bloomsbury thoroughfare. The Dickens House Museum sat in a block of modest townhouses nearly indistinguishable from one another: drab brick, unadorned rectangular windows, arched doorways.

Inside the museum a thin woman standing behind a glass counter smiled when he introduced himself.

“I’m Mrs. Pierce,” she said. “You’ll be wanting the director, won’t you?”

“Yes, Mr. Jarvis Dedlock,” said Henley.

She shook her head. “I’m afraid you just missed Mr. Dedlock. He’s been sacked.”

“What?” Henley had exchanged e-mails with Jarvis Dedlock for the past three months in order to arrange on-site research.

She leaned forward to stage-whisper the rest. “Valuable items from the collection have gone missing.”

“And Mr. Dedlock is responsible?”

Mrs. Pierce, clearly enjoying her role as bearer of sordid tidings, shook her head. “Mr. Dedlock assures me that the thief is still among us. Mark my words, Mr. Henley. Jarvis Dedlock is as innocent as a lamb.”

Henley was primarily concerned with whether the archives would still be available to him. Mrs. Pierce reassured him that all would be well. “The new director is Mr. Thatcher Finn. He’s in conference at the moment, but I’ll alert him that you’re here. Would you care to enjoy the exhibits while you wait?”

He retreated contentedly enough into what had been the Dickens family’s dining room. His rubber-soled walking shoes were silent on the hardwood floors. There was little furniture. Locked glass cabinets held displays of Dickensiana — letters, manuscripts, reviews, first editions. Henley gravitated to an exhibit of a magazine called Household Words.

“He published nearly everything in periodicals first, you know,” said a voice behind him. He turned to face the speaker and beheld, to his surprise, someone who looked like a fifteen-year-old surfer: blond hair in a choppy mullet, white T-shirt advertising Pimm’s, pedal-pusher trousers that fell halfway between kneecap and ankle, and flip-flops.

Behind this young man was an older gentleman wearing waistcoat, pince-nez, and watch chain. His diaphanous white hair lifted off his head to form a halo in the doorway, and he smiled politely at the assertiveness of the chatty young man. Henley could not have conjured a more Dickensian director for the Dickens House Museum than the man in the doorway, who had just enough of a belly to qualify as generously proportioned but not quite enough for portly.

“Mr. Finn, I presume,” said Henley, artfully dodging the young man, crossing to the chap in the doorway, and extending his hand. But the plump gentleman blushed.

“Right here, Mr. Henley,” said the young man. He stood with hands in his pockets and one foot crossed over the other. “But please meet Mr. Ravi Vikram. He works for us.”

Henley required a few moments to recalibrate his assumptions. Thatcher Finn, the director of the Dickens House, was this... this slacker? And the gentleman who looked exactly like Pickwick had an Indian name?

Ravi Vikram, who appeared to be in his mid fifties, extended a hand for Henley to shake. “Hope to see you at the show,” he said, and when Henley looked puzzled, he added, “In the parlor. This evening.”

“Mr. Vikram plays Dickens in a weekly performance,” explained Thatcher Finn. “Every Wednesday night in the parlor. Including tonight.”

Henley was still trying to sort out the cast of characters. “Mr. Finn,” he said finally to the young man. “Forgive me for saying so, but you look so young.”

“He is young,” said Ravi Vikram, who spoke with an elegant Oxbridge accent. “How old are you, Thatch?”

“Twenty-eight.” Finn was clearly accustomed to the question. “Before you ask, I read literature at Durham and got the master’s at Trinity, Cambridge.”

“So all my arrangements with Jarvis Dedlock—?”

“Terribly sorry about the confusion,” said Thatcher Finn. “One of those rather unexpected departures. He dropped by this morning to turn in his keys. You just missed him, in fact.”

“That’s what Mrs. Pierce said at reception,” said Henley.

Thatcher Finn lofted several sheets of paper. “I have printouts of your e-mail messages here, Mr. Henley. You’re interested in the plays, are you? Shall I show you the reading room? Ravi, might you pardon us?”

Ravi Vikram waved them away as Thatcher Finn led Henley back to the reception area and through a door into a large, well-equipped modern office.

“For security purposes, the only access to the reading room is through my workplace,” said Finn. He guided Henley to a door on the opposite wall.

They descended a steep staircase into a small room with a single table offering comfortable seating for four. Abutting the table was an old-fashioned card catalogue, and except for a desktop computer tucked away in a cubbyhole, the rest of the room was filled with bookshelves.

“If you can’t find what you need on your own,” said Finn, “Manette Marley will be happy to assist you.”

“Manette Marley?”

“Our curator. Here she comes now.”

They could hear footsteps on the stairway. A moment later she entered. Manette Marley had ebony skin, dreadlocks, and three small rings in each ear. She smiled and offered a firm handshake.

“Nigerian,” she said in a flawless British accent. “Everyone always asks eventually, so there you are. Lovely to have you here, Mr. Henley. You’re showing him round, Thatch?”

Her work station was the small cubbyhole attached to the reading room, and she tapped computer keys during Henley’s brief tour.

“We keep some of the collection upstairs,” Finn explained. “This catalogue will tell us where a particular item might be, including in the display cases. Manette or I can bring you manuscripts for anything that’s not published, but I have to ask you to use these when you handle primary materials.” He indicated a box of white cotton gloves, similar to what Henley had to wear when he was attending cotillion as a boy. “Even the oil from clean fingers can accelerate the deterioration of paper.” Henley began to gather that Thatcher Finn belonged in this job after all.

“I’m trying to learn why Dickens never became a major Victorian playwright. Do you have any ideas?”

“Easy,” said Thatcher Finn. “He wasn’t very good at drama, was he?”

“Yes, he was,” came the voice of the invisible Manette Marley. “He put on plays in his Tavistock Square house for years. And he acted.”

Thatcher Finn grinned. “There you are. The cutthroat world of Dickens scholarship, where the discovery of even a greengrocer’s bill can generate envy, acrimony, and knives in backs.”

Henley soon settled into a comfortable routine. He would read for an hour, then take a break by visiting one of the rooms in the museum overhead. The Dickens House was vertical, with only a couple of rooms on each of the four floors, and by two p.m. Henley had explored his way up to the two bedrooms at the top of the house. The larger one had belonged to Dickens and his wife, Catherine. The smaller bedroom, however, offered a more macabre history: Here young Mary Hogarth, Dickens’ sister-in-law, died at age seventeen. A half-dozen other visitors reverently milled about the cozy space, which, like all the other rooms, displayed Dickens artifacts under glass.

Between the bedrooms was a narrow dressing room where Henley suffered a scare. Behind a velvet rope was a square table covered with photographs of the Dickens family, a special exhibit in honor of the bicentennial of Dickens’ birth. The red satin tablecloth fell all the way to the floor, and as Henley leaned over the restraining rope to get a closer look at Mary Hogarth’s portrait, a hand came out from beneath the table and grabbed his ankle. He yelped. Then a small boy, surely no more than four years old, shouted, “Boo,” and poked his head from beneath the tablecloth. In a moment the child’s embarrassed mother had forcibly retrieved him and apologized, but it was enough to send Henley back to the quiet of the reading room, where he was working his way through a silly Dickens farce called Is She His Wife?

In his absence a petite woman in her early twenties had arrived. She wore slacks and a T-shirt and tiny reading glasses, and she quietly conferred with Manette before putting on a pair of white gloves and receiving from the archives five letters, still in their envelopes, each stored in a brown paper sleeve. She sat opposite Henley at the only table, and she nodded politely at him before she began her examination of the first document. In embarrassment he closed his open briefcase. The entire contents consisted of one red apple for snacking. Though Henley fully expected to accumulate abundant notes and papers by the end of the month, his briefcase for now served merely as a prop to distinguish him as a scholar, not a tourist.

Within ten minutes he heard loud footsteps clumping down the stairs. Then a young man in cowboy boots entered the room. His face was puffy and glistened with sweat. Henley guessed he was about twenty years old — a college student, and apparently a hungover one.

Manette Marley asked if she could help him.

“Bring me the Forster biography. Chop chop.” An American accent.

Henley was mortified by the kid’s rudeness. The woman working opposite Henley also glared at the newcomer until he finally responded.

“No breakfast,” he said. While Manette went off to find the book he’d requested, the young oaf stood, reeled for a moment, and then fainted. Collapsing onto the table, he sent Henley’s briefcase flying before he slid from tabletop to floor in a shower of the documents being examined by the young woman, who shouted and ran for Manette. By the time Henley could reach him, the kid had regained consciousness. “No breakfast,” he said again as he struggled to sit up. In a moment Manette Marley arrived. She helped Henley get the young man seated while the woman retrieved her belongings. Just when everything seemed to be returning to normal, Manette gasped.

“Where’s the Ternan letter?” she asked. Trembling, she held one of five paper sleeves in her right hand. Only four of the sleeves now contained their original contents. The fifth held a blank sheet of paper folded to duplicate the shape and thickness of a letter. The original Dickens correspondence was missing.

The woman who had been studying the letters was both horrified and defensive. “If that’s what’s in the sleeve now, then that’s what you delivered to me. I haven’t taken anything.”

“No one will leave this room,” said Manette Marley. She glared at all three of them and called for Thatcher Finn. “Clearly this entire scene was a ruse,” she said after Finn had arrived. “They were attempting a distraction. I don’t know whether all three are involved, or only these two.” She gestured at the young man, who was pale and perspiring, but she included Henley in her look.

“I beg your pardon,” said Henley. “I had nothing to do with this episode. Please search me immediately.”

“And me,” said the woman.

“Me too,” said the young man. “I haven’t got your letter.”

All three did, in fact, submit to a search, and no letter surfaced.

“It could have been stolen months ago,” said Henley.

“No,” said Thatcher Finn. “The lot from the British Library were just here two days ago to examine that letter. They want to do a special exhibit for the Dickens bicentennial. It’s the only surviving letter from Charles Dickens to Ellen Ternan, his mistress. Extremely rare. It never should have come out of the archives.”

He was clearly upset with Manette Marley, who was distraught in turn. “She said she was looking at watermarks and had to see the originals.”

“I am looking at watermarks,” said the agitated woman. “I would have called your attention to the substitution immediately if I had seen it. I was just getting to that letter when—” She stopped talking and gestured at the woozy young man who had fainted.

Thatcher Finn closed the reading room until further notice. “We need to see if there are other such substitutions,” he said to Manette. “That means a systematic inventory of every letter in the collection.”

She nodded. There were hundreds of letters. It would take days.

“Meanwhile,” said Thatcher Finn, “I am going to ask all of you to leave your belongings here. I’m not an expert on secret compartments and the like. I want to get the police to examine your possessions properly. Please leave briefcases unlocked.”

They all consented.

Before Henley left the premises, Thatcher Finn pulled him aside. “Mr. Henley, I don’t believe you could have been involved in this incident, but I have to be sure.”

“Of course.”

“Why don’t you stop by tonight for your briefcase? I’ll give you a ticket to Ravi’s performance in apology for all the inconvenience.”

Henley was touched that the young director, in his first hectic day on the job, would be so thoughtful. That evening he returned for the show and was greeted by Thatcher Finn and Manette Marley at the door. “Mr. Henley,” said Finn, now dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt, “I must apologize. Somehow your briefcase has disappeared.”

Henley tried to soften his annoyance. “Weren’t the police coming to examine it?”

Finn nodded. “They were coming round at seven o’clock. I left the case on my desk when we closed the house at five. When I returned to reopen at six forty-five, it was gone. I can’t find it anywhere.”

Henley resisted the temptation to berate him. Jarvis Dedlock, Finn’s predecessor as director of the museum, had been sacked because materials were missing. Obviously security here was as sloppy as Finn’s clothing. But the young director was embarrassed and bewildered by the disappearance of Henley’s property. Resignedly Henley joined the rest of the audience in the parlor to nibble bland cheese squares and sip cheap wine before the show. Of the three dozen people already present, the loudest contingent consisted of American college students traveling with their professor — a brash man with a ponytail.

“No, my wife couldn’t join us,” boomed the professor. He held a glass of red wine in one hand and pointed with the other. “She was too humiliated by the behavior she witnessed this afternoon.” He glared at his target, and Henley followed his gaze to the young man who had fainted that afternoon, now red with embarrassment but defiantly guzzling wine. Interesting, Henley thought. The scholarly young woman was married to this blow-hard professor, and the oaf was one of his students.

The show started promptly at eight with the ringing of a hand bell. The snug parlor somehow accommodated chairs for forty people. Henley realized that he was attending not a play but a reenactment of a reading by Dickens. Ravi Vikram, in a brown nineteenth-century pinstriped suit, squared goatee, and a curly pompadour wig, stood at a lectern and spoke of “his” early life of poverty, of the effect of having to work in a factory, of how those early memories crept into his fiction. Then he read passages from Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby.

“I also had a lifelong interest in crime,” said Vikram in character as Dickens. “After the interval, I’ll read to you some of my most gruesome descriptions of violence, including the murder of Nancy by Bill Sykes. Let me warn you now: Sometimes members of the audience faint.”

He winked at Henley, who sat in the front row, then he exited through the crowd before the audience had come to its feet. Henley was the last member of the audience to file out. When he reached the door, Manette Marley stopped him.

“Ravi left a note for you,” she said, and she handed him a small piece of paper. Meet me upstairs at the interval, it said, and it was signed with an initial, R.

Henley was flattered by the invitation. He must have made quite an impression during their brief introduction this morning. Most actors had business to tend to at intermission — costume changes, touching up makeup, looking after props, and, most important, staying in character. While the rest of the audience milled about in the ground-floor dining room, Henley peeked into the office to make sure that Vikram wasn’t waiting there. The only inhabitant was Thatcher Finn, who talked on a cell phone, so Henley proceeded to the upper floors.

In the smaller upstairs bedroom, where young Mary Hogarth had died, he found Ravi Vikram. The actor, still in makeup and costume, lay on his back with his head propped against the wall. His eyes were open but stared at nothing. The velvet rope from the neighboring dressing room was wrapped tightly around his throat. One end of Vikram’s necktie was knotted to his left wrist, while the other end twisted around the handle of a black briefcase — Driscoll Henley’s briefcase, to be exact.

Henley rushed to the body and loosened the rope around Vikram’s neck. This attack could not have happened more than a moment before Henley’s arrival, and he hoped that CPR might yet revive the man. As he unwound the last of the rope, he heard footsteps on the stairs.

“Mr. Henley?” It was the horrified voice of Manette Marley. She was with Thatcher Finn, who was already dialing 999 on his cell phone.

In what seemed like no time at all, a dozen police officers converged on the house, cordoned it off, forbade anyone to leave the premises, and arrested Driscoll Henley.

“Give me five minutes,” Henley begged. But what could he prove in five minutes?

“You acknowledge that this is your briefcase,” said the inspector.

“Yes,” said Henley. “I left it this afternoon at the request of Mr. Finn. I was going to take it with me after the show.”

“What’s inside?”

“Only an apple,” said Henley. “See for yourself.”

But when the inspector opened the briefcase, out spilled three periodicals from 1863, a first-edition autographed copy of David Copperfield, and the missing letter from Charles Dickens to Ellen Ternan. Henley was dumbfounded.

“The book and magazines came from this very display case,” said Thatcher Finn, indicating the glass enclosure along the far wall.

“Do you have CCTV cameras?” asked the inspector.

Finn shook his head. “My first priority. But there’s no camera system at present.”

Henley felt sick. “I did not take those items,” he said.

“You were present when that letter disappeared today,” said Manette Marley.

“You saw the contents of the case,” said Henley. “Except for the apple, it was empty.” He looked at Thatcher Finn. “You told me this briefcase was missing. But you had it all along, and you packed it with these stolen materials.”

“I’d never do that,” said Finn. “I’m here to protect the collection, not to pillage it.”

“Didn’t your predecessor lose his job because bits of the collection were disappearing?” asked Henley. “He can’t be blamed for this latest episode, can he?”

Thatcher Finn reddened.

Encouraged, Henley continued. “You could have stashed these items in my case after you killed Ravi Vikram. As a diversion.”

Finn shook his head. “When would I have had time to do all that? You saw me on the telephone in my office at the interval. Ravi was only a few moments ahead of you.”

The police inspector interrupted. “There’s what remains of your apple.” He pointed to the apple core under a window. “Didn’t want to stain the valuables, did you?”

Henley stared at the apple core and at the evidence in front of him. He considered asking the police to check his briefcase for fingerprints, but anyone wishing to conceal fingerprints would have easy access to the scholars’ gloves provided by the museum itself.

For a moment he wondered whether the dead man himself might have been stealing the documents, but he immediately dismissed that idea. Anyone who caught Vikram in the act of thievery would have raised the alarm, not killed him. And why put these artifacts into Henley’s briefcase? Were they planning for Henley to serve as an unsuspecting mule, for him to carry the contraband off the premises and then, what? A street crime, a quick grab-and-snatch? Henley would report being mugged, and the thieves would escape with priceless Dickens materials. It would work, he supposed, but it seemed awfully complicated as a way of stealing from the collection.

He recalled the scene in the reading room that afternoon. “The man who collapsed this afternoon. He was evidently faint from not eating breakfast. He could have eaten my apple. Did anyone notice whether he left the performance before intermission?”

“I sat at the door,” said Manette. “No one left.”

“If you were at the door, then you could have slipped out yourself,” said Henley.

“To do what?” asked Manette. “Ravi was alive at the end of the first act. And everyone in the audience exited the room before I did. You were the last to leave, and that’s when I gave you the note.”

Yes, the note. Exactly why would Vikram invite Driscoll Henley, a virtual stranger, to meet him upstairs between acts?

“He wrote a note to me but asked you to deliver it? That’s awfully cumbersome. Why put the invitation in writing? He could have spoken to me directly as he walked past.”

She shrugged. “Perhaps he didn’t want to break character.”

Henley thought about that. There was one logical conclusion.

“Tick tock, Mr. Henley,” said the inspector.

He took a chance. “The note wasn’t for me, was it, Manette?” When she didn’t answer, he knew that he’d guessed right. “It was you that he wanted to meet upstairs, not me. You must have known what was going to happen to him, and you wanted me to find the body.”

Now all stared at him — and at her. Two fat tears slid down her cheeks. “It’s not like that,” she said. “I’m sorry. Ravi wrote that note to me six weeks ago. Tonight I used it to send Mr. Henley to find him.” She looked at the policemen. “I didn’t know Ravi was going to be assaulted. I just wanted to embarrass him. He had to stop.”

“Stop what?” asked Henley.

She gestured at the display cases in the room. “Ravi would open the exhibits. Handle the books, touch the miniatures. He said it helped him stay in character. But of course it was entirely inappropriate.”

“You had the keys to the display cabinets,” Henley prompted her. “And you’d open them up for him.”

She nodded. “But after today, I couldn’t. Not after Mr. Jarvis was sacked and we had a letter missing.”

Henley nodded. “In the process of opening up the display cases to connect directly with Dickens, Vikram must have discovered that some original items had been replaced with replicas. Tonight he came face-to-face with the thief, who killed him and tied my briefcase to his hands after stashing these stolen items inside. It was a literal means of tying me to the murder.”

“But how could the thief get into these locked exhibits?” asked Manette. “Ravi had no keys.”

“And there’s no broken glass,” said Finn. The room fell silent. Finn stared at Manette. “You and I are the only ones with keys to these cases.”

Manette stared back. “What did you do with the keys turned in this morning by Jarvis Dedlock? Someone could have used those.”

Finn pulled two sets of keys from his pocket. “I’ve carried both Jarvis’s and my own all day.”

A long silence, and then Manette spoke. “I know I didn’t kill him, Thatch.”

“I know I didn’t,” said Finn.

“Neither one of you killed him,” said Henley. He recalled the scene from this afternoon. The young woman — the wife of the professor downstairs — had known the boorish young man sitting next to her. Surely they had collaborated on an elaborate scheme to steal from the collection. In the confusion after the young man pretended to faint, somebody could snatch the Dickens letter and stash it in the reading room, perhaps inside the card catalogue. In case of a search, the thief would not be holding incriminating evidence and could return to fetch the letter later. The young man had spent the entire evening downstairs. But couldn’t the young woman be here too, somewhere out of sight? Her husband had loudly proclaimed that she wasn’t attending the performance. That could have been a classic act of misdirection. Could the woman have been hiding in the house all day, waiting for an opportunity to retrieve her stolen goods? Was that possible? For a visitor to lurk unbeknownst to the staff for so many hours after closing time?

Only a couple of minutes had passed between Ravi Vikram’s exit at the end of Act One and Henley’s discovery of the body. No one could have killed the man and then had time to slip down the stairs undetected. There was no fire escape or elevator or laundry chute. Whoever had killed Ravi Vikram must still be on this floor of the house.

“What’s that?” asked Henley, pointing to a door in the corner.

“A cupboard,” said Thatcher Finn.

What Americans call a closet. “It’s locked, I suppose.”

A policeman tried it. The door was unlocked, but the closet was empty.

“That’s odd,” said Thatcher Finn. “That door is supposed to be locked always.”

“That’s where the killer was hiding until Ravi Vikram arrived.”

“But where is this mysterious figure now, Mr. Henley?” asked the inspector. “There are no more cupboards to check. Who is this person, and where?”

The answer came too easily. “The killer is in the room next-door.”

“The other bedroom is empty.”

“Not the other bedroom. The dressing room. Look under the tablecloth of the special exhibit. It’s long enough to conceal someone.”

Two policemen left the room. He heard them enter the dressing room, then the sounds of a brief scuffle. In a moment they reentered the room escorting a handcuffed, writhing prisoner. It was a man Henley had never seen before, a diminutive bald man in a dress shirt, suit trousers, and sneakers.

“Jarvis Dedlock,” said Thatcher Finn, shocked.

The former director of the museum.

“They said I’d just missed you this morning,” said Henley. “But you never left the house, did you? Mrs. Pierce looked the other way when you slipped upstairs. You convinced her that you were innocent and were springing a trap for the real thief.”

“But he turned in his keys,” said Finn.

“Duplicates,” said Henley. He turned to Jarvis Dedlock. “When did you steal the letter?”

Dedlock didn’t even bother to ask who Henley was. He must have overheard the entire conversation from his hiding place next-door. After a moment, he shrugged. “Two days ago. As soon as the authenticators from the British Library left the building.”

“And where did you hide it?”

Dedlock snorted. “I didn’t hide it. I took it home with me.” He paused, as if waiting to see if Henley would work it all out.

“You took a priceless letter home,” said Henley, “but you brought it back with you this morning when you came to turn in your keys. Why would you do that?”

Dedlock said nothing.

Henley worked it out as he talked. “You hid all day in this cupboard with perhaps the most valuable letter in the collection. Why? You weren’t trying to return it to the archive. You could have done that at five o’clock when the place closed and you had the premises to yourself.”

Now everyone was listening to him.

“You slipped out, found my briefcase downstairs, and loaded it with Dickens memorabilia. But if you’d simply been planning to steal, you could have left immediately while the museum was still deserted. Instead, you went back to your hiding place and waited for everyone to return for the performance tonight.”

Dedlock appeared to gain some respect for Henley. “You’re clever for a Yank. Cleverer than most.” He glared with loathing at Thatcher Finn.

Then Henley caught on. “You came for revenge. You must have really hated Ravi Vikram. To wait here for him to arrive at intermission.”

“He got me sacked,” said Dedlock. “Complained to the board that materials were missing. All the evidence against me was circumstantial, but they held me accountable.”

Henley nodded. His eye caught on the apple core still in the corner of the room. “You were so tidy. Why eat the apple and toss the remains onto the floor?”

“I thought it was Finn’s apple,” said Dedlock. “I thought I was taking his briefcase from his desk.”

Henley understood it all. “You thought you were framing Thatcher Finn, not me. In one move you’d get rid of your accuser and your replacement. Did you expect to get your job back?”

Dedlock stared straight at him. “Not only would I get my position back, but the Governing Board would apologize for ever doubting me.”

When Henley eventually spoke to Suzanne McClain on the telephone, it was midnight in London, seven p.m. in the States. “I solved the mystery,” he said.

“Already?” She sounded genuinely impressed. “So tell me. Why did Dickens write novels instead of plays?”

“Because he could be in complete control as a novelist,” said Henley. “In plays actors could change lines or ad-lib or otherwise tamper with his scripts. When he was the narrator of a story, he was in total command of each gesture, speech, thought. He got to play every part himself, always perfectly.”

She approved. “How did you conclude that so quickly?”

He told her about his evening. “Jarvis Dedlock had scripted the plot right down to what the Governing Board would say when they reinstated him. But a couple of actors improvised and spoiled his production.”

She congratulated him. “What are you going to do in London for the next month?”

He had thought about that too. “I might as well take care of the Shakespeare authorship question while I’m here,” he said. “Stay tuned.”

Copyright © 2012 by W. Edward Blain

The Jury Box

by Jon L. Breen

The five novels of Derek Raymond’s Factory series (Melville House, $14.95 each) represent a landmark in British detective fiction. Downbeat, violent, sometimes depressing or even revolting in their uncompromising exploration of urban crime and morbid psychology, they are made palatable by superb prose style, very dark humor, and the uncompromising morality of their unnamed narrator, a lone-wolf London detective sergeant. They are both searing social documents and genuine if unconventional detective stories. In the first of them, He Died With His Eyes Open (1984), introduced by James Sallis, the sergeant becomes obsessed with a beating murder no one else seems to care about and the voluminous audiotapes the victim left behind. Unusual as it is, it follows a comparatively standard mystery structure, but the last, Dead Man Upright (1993), previously unpublished in the U.S., eschews by-the-numbers suspense for an anticlimactic arrest and a case study of the serial killer’s twisted mentality that fills up nearly the last third of the book. Others are The Devil’s Home on Leave (1985), How the Dead Live (1986), introduced by Will Self, and I Was Dora Suarez (1990).

Philip Wylie was one of the most versatile and (with his coinage of “momism”) controversial popular writers of the twentieth century. Surinam Turtle, Richard A. Lupoff’s Ramble House imprint, has revived two curiosities from early in his career. The real rarity is Blondy’s Boy Friend ($18), a romantic mystery redolent of the roaring ’20s, originally published in book form in 1930 as by Leatrice Homesley. The titular blonde turns detective initially to try to clear of murder her doctor boy-friend, who has offered the following sage advice: “Don’t bother your pretty head. Women weren’t cut out for detective work.” Plot and romance are equally preposterous, but it’s interesting as a period piece, and the nuttily ingenious whodunit surprise somewhat anticipates a famous detective novel. (Save Lupoff’s introduction for the end, if you don’t want to know which one.) The 1935 satire The Smiling Corpse ($18), written with Bernard A. Bergman, is notable for a cast of real people, including former Pinkerton man Dashiell Hammett and amateur sleuths S.S. Van Dine, Sax Rohmer, and G.K. Chesterton. J. Randolph Cox’s introduction describes his efforts to pin down the true authorship of a novel originally published anonymously.

The death in 2011 of Enid Schantz, proprietor with husband Tom of the Rue Morgue Press, was a great loss to the mystery world. But Rue Morgue continues its policy of reprinting outstanding English and American detective stories from the 1930s and after. Latter-day classicist Patricia Moyes joins the list with her 1959 debut Dead Men Don’t Ski ($14.95), introduced by Katherine Hall Page, first of 19 novels about Chief Inspector Henry Tibbett and wife Emmy. Anthony Boucher praised the early work of P.D. James by averring that she was almost as good as Patricia Moyes. At the same price are accounts of impossible or inexplicable crimes by three stars of the Golden Age of Detection, American branch: Carter Dickson’s (John Dickson Carr’s) The Peacock Feather Murders (1937), about the outrageous Sir Henry Merrivale; Stuart Palmer’s second novel about schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers, Murder on Wheels (1932); and Clyde B. Clason’s The Purple Parrot (1937), one of the better cases for classical historian Theocritus Lucius Westborough.

Also recommended to impossible-crime fanciers are Daniel Stashower’s The Dime Museum Murders (1999) and The Floating Lady Murder (2000) (Titan, $9.95 each), which offer a colorful view of late 1890s show biz and Harry Houdini, an admiring quoter of Sherlock Holmes, as likeable if egotistical comic sleuth. But is fellow illusionist Dash Hardeen, his brother and Watson, the real detective? The puzzle plots, with a locked room in the first and an illusion-gone-wrong in the second, are well managed with clues and surprises.

Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Maud Silver, an elderly and constantly knitting spinster sleuth, is quite different from the superficially similar Miss Marple: she’s a P.I. rather than an amateur, and her 1928 debut Grey Mask (Open Road e-book, $9.99) calls to mind Edgar Wallace and P.G. Wodehouse more than Agatha Christie. But with its nice writing, rocky romance, and sinister masked villain, it’s loads of fun.

Perfect .38 (Ramble House, $30 hardcover, $18 trade paper) comprises two of William Ard’s novels about New York shamus Timothy Dane. His first-person debut The Perfect Frame (1951) takes the familiar P.I. jumps with flair, but the third-person .38 (1952), in which Dane the conflicted romantic meets his mirror image in a new- style white-collar mobster, is a vast improvement, with characters better drawn and the story arc more original. As Francis M. Nevins’s introduction suggests, Ard began by imitating Spillane but his heart wasn’t in it.

Richard Deming’s four enjoyable novels about one-legged World War II-vet P.I. Manville Moon — The Gallows in My Garden (1952), Tweak the Devil’s Nose (1953), Whistle Past the Graveyard (1954, reprinted as Give the Girl a Gun), and Juvenile Delinquent (1958), the latter previously published in book form only in Great Britain — are all available as e-books (Prologue Books, $3.99 each). Moon, who operates in an unnamed Midwestern city, has some associates (long-term girlfriend, annoying comic sidekick, irascible police contact) that seem made for radio. Deming believed in fair-play clues as well as hardboiled set-pieces. The first and best seems to be following the plot of a classic detective novel but may surprise you.

Ennis Willie’s Sand’s War (Ramble House, $32 hardcover, $18 trade paper) has two wildly plotted, energetically writ-ten 1963 cases for the mobster-turned-sleuth known only as Sand.

Haven for the Damned, set in a castle that serves as a hotel for fugitives, is unsatisfactory as a locked-room mystery but cleverly constructed. Fantastic as it is, it looks like gritty realism next to the Spillane-inspired Scarlet Goddess, concerning that old P.I. staple, the sinister religious cult, and a serial rapist-killer who resembles a Sasquatch.

Also recommended: Douglas C. Jones’s beautifully written 1979 novel Winding Stair (New American Library, $15), a superlative historical-Western-courtroom-mystery hybrid; the 1941 title novel in William G. Bogart’s Hell on Friday: The Johnny Saxon Trilogy (Altus Press, $34.95, e-book $4.99), introduced by Will Murray, far from classic but notable for its background of the cutthroat pulp magazine business; Georges Simenon’s World War II romance The Train (Melville House, $14), translated by Robert Baldick, first published in French in 1961 and in English in 1964, intensely suspenseful, subtle and acute in characterization, with a powerful surprise conclusion; and John Gardner’s Victorian gangster epic The Return of Moriarty (Pegasus, $25), introduced by Otto Penzler, one of the earliest (1974) and one of the finest book-length examples of Sherlockian spin-off and revisionist history, though Holmes himself is only an offstage presence.

Sax Rohmer’s The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913; original U.S. title The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu) and The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1916; original British title The Devil Doctor), both short story collections disguised as novels, have been reprinted in handsome trade paperbacks (Titan, $9.95 each), with other Fu-Manchu volumes to come. If Leslie Klinger’s excellent afterword to the first volume is correct that the evil doctor’s exploits, enormously entertaining but undeniably racist, attract more contemporary readers than Earl Derr Biggers’s Charlie Chan, created as a corrective to racism, what a sad irony.

Copyright © 2012 by Jon L. Breen

Gone Fishing

by Jim Davis

When Jim Davis debuted in EQMM’s Department of First Stories in February of 2011 he said he had more short story ideas for his private detective Bradley Carter. Here we have the fruit of one of those ideas, a case in which Carter goes on a high-tension chase through the Ozark Mountains, a scene familiar to his creator, a veterinarian who lives on a farm near the Lake of the Ozarks.

* * * *

I was sitting at a corner table in a smoke-filled biker bar just off Route 16 in northwest Arkansas. My stack of quarters glinted on the bumper under the Stag Beer light that illuminated the stained felt of the pool table. My momma, if she were still alive, would not have approved.

I nursed a lukewarm Budweiser longneck waiting for Seymour “Tiny” Buckman to hustle twenty bucks off a half-breed kid who was way too drunk to steer his bike back to Oklahoma. Tiny had probably been drinking all day himself, from the looks of it. I was sure of it when he double-tapped the cue ball before sinking the eight ball in the corner pocket. He stared the breed down as he chalked his cue; his glare daring the kid to call him on it. His eyes were red, and his pupils were dilated like he might be on something besides an alcohol buzz.

The kid reached in his pocket and flipped a wadded-up pair of tens out onto the felt and handed the cue to me. He staggered toward the door without a word. He was listing slightly to the left as he aimed for the opening. He suddenly reeled and fell headlong into the shuffleboard table, scattering pucks and sending up a cloud of Ultra Glide powder. He rolled off and slid under the table and lay still. No one seemed to notice.

Tiny scooped the money off the table as he staggered over to where I sat. He wore a jean jacket with the sleeves cut out, the armpits wet with sweat, and a pair of Levis so shiny and dark that I would guess they had never been washed since they came off the shelf at Walmart. He weighed at least two-fifty and smelled like a hog eating onions. He reached out a hairy paw, snatched my beer off the table, and chugged it in two gulps. He wiped the foam from his beard with the back of his arm and tossed the bottle on the table, where it spun to a stop. He leaned down into my face and let out a mighty belch. I felt my hair move, but I managed to keep from breathing until he stood back up and said, “Rack ’em.”

It is always in the wee hours in a place like this that I wonder why I wanted to be a private investigator. The air was close and damp, and smelled of stale beer. The establishment had one window air conditioner stuffed through a hole at the end of the bar, where it chugged away; condensation ran down the wall and disappeared through a crack in the floor. I had ridden here on a 1969 Shovelhead Harley-Davidson that my granddaddy had bought new, and I was wearing an old leather flight jacket over a black T-shirt. But that was as far as my biker cover went. I didn’t have a single tattoo and would have been more at home in a Polo shirt and golf shorts. I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of leaving the old Colt semiauto in the saddlebag.

I was put on the trail of one Delbert Fish by his maiden aunt, Miss Etta Mae Fish, who had been my Sunday-school teacher twenty-five years ago. Delbert was wanted in connection with a rape and assault that had occurred down by Fort Smith. According to the news reports, it was a brutal crime, and the victim was in a coma. Miss Etta Mae was certain that her nephew was not capable of such abominations. She had come to see me in the back-room office that I occasionally used at the Fayetteville, Arkansas, law firm of Gantry and Grizzell, a couple of fraternity brothers of mine.

“It is inconceivable that little Delbert could have done those — those horrible things.” She sat upright and prim in a captain’s chair across from my desk. She wore a light-blue, floral-print dress that she had probably made herself and clutched a big black purse with both hands. “I’m not familiar with what a private eye charges,” she said, opening the purse. “I can give you two hundred dollars.” She pulled out a wad of fives and ones that I knew had come from piano lessons she’d given over the years.

“Miss Etta Mae,” I began, wondering how I was going to get out of this. “I’ve got other cases right now...”

“Young man,” she interrupted. “Don’t you tell a story to me! That nice woman out front told me that you needed the work.”

“Now Miss Etta...”

“Bradley Carter, you listen to me. Half the law-enforcement officers in the state are looking for Delbert down in the delta. If they find him, they will shoot him. Now I’m coming to you because I want you to find him first, so he can turn himself in. Besides, he’s not in the delta.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“Don’t you take that tone with me.” She gave me a look of reprimand. I was suddenly back in the basement of the old brick church on Sycamore Street. “Delbert spent the night at my home last Friday.”

I was incredulous. Miss Etta Mae Fish was aiding and abetting a fugitive? My mouth was open, but no words were coming out.

“I had no idea at the time that he was wanted by the law. I haven’t watched the news since David Brinkley retired, but I turned on the radio after Delbert left, and there it was.”

“You didn’t go to the police?”

“Of course not! Delbert couldn’t have done those things.”

I was leaning over my desk, doodling on a yellow legal pad. I had seen little Delbert’s picture on the news and heard the story. He certainly looked like he was guilty. He had black tattoos running up his neck, his nose was askew, and he had a puckered scar running from the corner of his mouth up to his left eye. He had already done time in the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Correctional System.

“Bradley, you just have to find Delbert before the police do.”

I just stared at her.

“They will kill him!”

What she was asking me to do was like crawling into a cave full of rattlesnakes.

“The radio also said that the girl’s father has offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward.” She pursed her lips defiantly, causing her bifocals to shrug up on her nose.

Ten thousand dollars.

My demeanor must have changed, because she took out a pen and paper from the purse and said, “Let me show you where he went.”

And now here I was, shooting pool with Delbert’s “associate,” Tiny Buckman; the two fellows became fast friends while awaiting trial in the Washington County Jail on drug charges a few years back. Although it was tempting, I did not clear the table after Tiny’s lame attempt at a break. No one else had put any money on the table, so I let him win the first game. It cost me twenty bucks, but it would be cheap if I could find the location of his family’s notorious still back in the mountains. That may sound strange, but this is Arkansas. We have a number of dry counties, and moonshiners continue to ply their trade back in the hills. Etta Mae was convinced that Delbert was headed to the Buckman still to hide out until the search cooled off. I did not even ask how she knew where to look for the place.

Seven beers and three games of eight ball later, Tiny looked no more drunk or talkative than he had been to start with. In fact, he seemed to get surlier as the night went on. I had been dropping hints about how some of the Benton County high rollers had developed a taste for good moonshine, and how I intended to cash in on that trend if I could find a supply of quality product. He showed absolutely no interest until I finally came out and asked if his grandpap still made shine up in the hills. That got his attention, but not the way I had hoped. He picked up his cue in midshot and turned it around, backing me up against the bar. I jerked a leg up to protect myself as he swung the cue at my ribs. The cue stick hit my knee with a loud crack, and fell to the floor in pieces. That was going to hurt when the adrenaline wore off. Before I could slither away and run, Tiny had a forearm across my neck, bending me backwards over the bar. His hairy arm was up under my chin, and he was bellowing obscenities as he attempted to crush my windpipe. He only succeeded in propelling me down the bar on my back. My T-shirt was soaking up spilled beer as glasses went crashing to the floor.

Just when I thought I was going to pass out, I heard a loud crack, like when Albert Pujols knocks one deep into left-center, and the pressure on my neck was released. As my vision cleared I saw Tiny’s eyes roll up into his head. The bearded, sweaty, slobbering face of Tiny Buckman went blank as he fell away to the floor. I coughed and massaged my throat as I slid off the bar and steadied myself against it.

Standing before me was a small woman with stringy black hair holding the narrow end of a pool cue. She calmly set the cue down on the table and looked at me. She wore a black Jack Daniels T-shirt cut off short, revealing twin dragon tattoos peeking out of her low-riding jeans on either side of her navel. She had a square jaw and coarse chin. “Can you give me a ride home?” she asked. “I don’t think Tiny’s up to it.”

I looked at Tiny lying facedown on the floor. He was already starting to snore. “Boyfriend?” I asked.

“Husband,” she said.

It was well after midnight when I started up the old motorcycle. The woman looked skeletal in the blue mercury-vapor light in the parking lot. She was older than I had thought; she had fine wrinkles around her mouth and eyes like a chronic smoker. She stared off at the darkness when she spoke; her eyes were glassy and dark with a bovine emptiness.

“It’s a ways out there. Got plenty of gas?” she asked.

“I think we can make it,” I said.

The bike had the original buddy seat on it, so she climbed on behind me with practiced ease. I pulled away slowly, while she lit up a cigarette. I kept the pace slow since I didn’t know the road and she was giving directions.

We had passed a closed liquor store half an hour before. That was just before we hit the gravel roads. I figured the store was on the county line, and we were now in one of the dry counties. The night was so dark it seemed to swallow the feeble light the old bike put out. I hadn’t seen a dusk-to-dawn light for a good fifteen minutes when a battered house-trailer loomed into the sweep of my headlight.

The place looked deserted, but as I turned off the bike, the bark and howl of a coon dog announced our arrival. I could hear the dog’s chain dragging against the skirting of the trailer. No lights came on, but I heard a screen door open and could make out the silhouette of a child as the woman reached the front door.

“Momma?”

“Go back to bed,” she scolded.

“But I’m hungry...”

“I ain’t got nothing for you. Now, get to bed!”

She turned my way. I could barely see her as my eyes tried to adjust. “Thanks for the ride,” she said.

“Will I get lost getting out of here?” I asked.

“Ain’t but one road out,” she said. “Don’t stop till you get to the county road. They let them dogs run loose at night.”

“Coonhounds?” I asked.

“Hell no, they’s part pit bull or somethin’. You best get out of here.”

She didn’t have to tell me again. I found myself taking the rutted two-track road a lot faster than I normally would have. Summer was about gone but the air was thick with humidity and, if anything, the night had gotten darker. A flash of lightning illuminated the surrounding hills as I came to the county-maintained road. Thunder rumbled across the valley before me as I rolled on the throttle; I did not want to get caught in a storm at night in the Ozark Mountains.

The sky in the east was streaked with red and orange as the sun pushed away the early-morning mist. The sky to the north was gunmetal gray as thunder echoed down the valley. I spotted the little store that I had seen coming in with its beer and liquor signs now muted by the coming daylight. The place had gas pumps, the old kind with number wheels and bells, not the kind where you can swipe your card and go. I pulled up to a pump and shut off the ignition. Without the noise of the bike, I could hear the rushing of a stream as it gushed past the little store and shot under the highway bridge. The violence of the water attested to the heavy rains that were falling farther up the valley.

“Need some gas?”

I managed not to jump. I hadn’t heard the man come up behind me.

“Hell of a storm up top,” he said, pointing his chin up the valley. He was thin with longish gray hair and a Gabby Hayes beard.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I need gas all right. How about coffee?”

“It’ll be done, time you get your gas,” he said, turning to go back inside. “I’ll turn the pump on.”

After I filled the bike, I walked past a minnow tank under an open shed. Aerators bubbled and hissed, and the shed smelled like a sardine can. The little store was homey, with a long wooden table and handmade benches around it. The old man talked as he turned on the lights in coolers and display cases. His blue-gray flannel shirt was thin enough to see through on the elbows. I poured myself a cup of coffee.

“You must’ve got up early this morning,” he said. “Fishin’s gonna be off with all that rain up high.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m actually just here to scout out a hunting spot for deer season this fall.” I stood looking at a map on the wall. It was made of pages out of an atlas taped together, and it showed the surrounding valley with spots marked along the creeks in red felt-tip. “What do you fish for around here?”

“Smallmouth bass. Good fishing most of the time.”

He kept talking while I looked at the map. I was trying to get my bearings, retracing my route from last night. “Who owns this up in here?” I asked, pointing a finger.

“Oh God,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t want to go in there. Them dang bikers hole up in there. I could tell right away you wasn’t one of them. They’re worthless as hell. Want some bacon?” He was peeling off strips into a big frying pan on an old gas stove.

“Sure, bacon’s good,” I replied. “So they wouldn’t want to lease me some hunting ground?”

“God no! You don’t even ask them boys. I had to run ’em off with old Bessie here. Pumped gas and didn’t pay.” He reached behind the counter and patted a double-barreled shotgun with all the bluing worn off. “Rock salt on the left, double-ought buck on the right. Gave it all to ’em.”

“What about this place?” I pointed to the adjoining property on the map.

“Well now, that would be a good place to hunt,” he said. The bacon hissed and popped as he flipped it over with a fork. “But you can’t get up there. There ain’t no road.”

“What about that?” I pointed to what looked like a trail up a creek that ran on the north side of the place.

He squinted at the map. “You can go up the creek with a four-wheeler, but you can’t get past the bluffs. Steep as hell.”

“Where could I rent a four-wheeler?”

“Nowheres I know of. You want some eggs?”

“Over easy,” I said. The old man looked like a hillbilly, and I’m sure he was, but he wasn’t a fool. He was answering my questions just enough to keep me asking more. “How do you get around to all these fishing spots?” I asked.

He gave a little laugh as he broke eggs and dropped them into the hot grease. “A sure-footed old mule named Abner.”

Abner was a jewel. He plodded on through the brushy, slick trails that I guess he knew were there; I surely couldn’t see them. I had left the Harley, of course, after assuring the old man that it was worth at least the value of the mule. I was avoiding thinking about how I was going to get Delbert out, if I happened to find him, but I would think of something. The saddle was an ancient, high-backed thing. The old fellow had bragged on it. “My pap brought it all the way from Kansas City back in the twenties; that’s a genuine Shipley.” The mule was big for a riding mule; he was a sorrel going to gray around the muzzle. The rain had finally come down to meet me, and the cheap poncho that I had purchased at the store was leaking badly where it had snagged on tree branches. When I got to the steep part of the trail, I let Abner do his own navigating. He went up slopes that looked impossible. All I could do was hold on; he was like a cat climbing a tree.

The rain stopped as we topped a ridge, and the sun peeked through the clouds. I smelled wood smoke. I looked through the army-surplus binoculars the old fellow had loaned me and checked out the head of the valley before me. The smoke was rising from a cabin not more than a quarter-mile away. It was still early morning, and men were already moving about. This was not going to be easy.

I dismounted and pulled off the poncho, tying it to the saddle. My back was wet, and I shivered as I tied off the mule. I’m not a bounty hunter; in fact, most of my work involves a computer and digging through courthouse files for my lawyer buddies. But ten thousand dollars is a lot of money, and a one-man private-investigating business is not all that lucrative. The offers that I had received from the big agencies, with their health-insurance coverage and paid vacation time, were looking awfully good as my clammy wet jeans clung to my legs.

As I approached the buildings, I was aware of a chemical smell besides the wood smoke. The old man at the station had told me that “Pappy” Buckman had been dead for years, and that his infamous still hadn’t been used for decades. I ducked behind some cedars as a man came out of one of the cabins carrying two five-gallon buckets and dumped them into the clearing. The grass and brush were already dead from previous dumping. The air held a tang of acid and sulfur, the telltale signs of a meth lab.

There were two guys moving in and out of what looked like an old smokehouse. One wore bibbed overalls with no shirt, his long hair tied in a ponytail. The other had a buzz cut and wore some kind of rubber apron. They both wore rubber gauntlets and busied themselves scrubbing glassware and buckets with water dipped from a small, stone-lined spring. The spring was probably the original reason the still was placed here. I made my way to the back side of a lean-to shed where I could still see the cabin. The grass, as well as the underbrush, was dead all down the hillside as chemicals leached out of a pile of containers for drain cleaner and muriatic acid. Some of the stuff was partially burned; I wouldn’t have wanted to be downwind of that fire.

“Hey!” The voice was so close that I reached behind my belt for the old Colt pistol I had brought with me. “Where can a guy take a dump around here?”

I had ducked back into the shed when I heard another one of them answer. “Yonder next to the shed. Take a roll of paper with you, but don’t leave it in the privy; the rats’ll shred it.” I sank deeper into the darkness behind an old high-wheeled grain wagon that had probably hauled corn for the mash. A door slammed, ringing hollow in the low pressure of the cloud cover. The weathered boards of the shed had shrunk over the years and allowed me to watch the approaching man through the cracks.

He was even uglier than his mugshots. Delbert Fish’s hair was matted and long. His once-white undershirt was gray and stained with what could have been last night’s supper... or blood spatter. The outhouse stood at a crooked angle just above the slope of the hill. I was tempted to shove it over the edge.

A dark green Honda four-wheeler was parked in front of the cabin, and I could see a path back across the clearing. I was hoping for a pickup or Jeep, something I could throw a disabled Fish into and hightail it out of the area. The trail was only wide enough for the four-wheeler. If I could get Fish down the hill quietly, I could work us back around to where Abner was tied and go out that way. There was no way they could follow the mule on a four-wheeler.

“You tie them dogs up?” It was Fish yelling from inside the outhouse. The hair on the back of my neck prickled. I hadn’t thought about a dog.

“Rosie’s tied up,” came the reply. I heard a chain dragging somewhere on the other side of the cabin as the dog heard her name.

“That damn dog don’t like me,” said Fish.

“That old bitch don’t like nobody.”

I couldn’t imagine a better chance of getting Fish than now, but I was going to need a diversion. I left the shed and ran in a crouch up to the back of the smokehouse. There was only one door into the building, and it was on the side facing the cabin. A pungent odor wafted from the old building; inside I could hear something bubbling away. Several of the boards on the back side were warped and loose. I pulled gently on one. Other than the slight hiss of a nail pulling free, it made no noise as I removed it. The hole wasn’t big enough to get through, but now I had a good look inside, where a rack of gallon metal cans lined one wall. The cans were puffed up like they were about to explode. White plastic buckets sat around on the floor bubbling and hissing. One corner was full of flattened empty boxes from cold tablets. A propane stove sat in the center of everything. My eyes followed the black rubber hose that led back to a silver propane cylinder next to the wall where my hole was. I reached in blindly, pressing my face against the boards. I could feel the hose with my fingertips. Stretching as much as I could, I got my hand around the hose and pulled it toward me.

I heard footsteps and a shadow appeared in the doorway. I kept my shoulder pressed against the hole. I wasn’t moving a muscle; I didn’t dare breathe. I could see the shadow through a crack. He came forward just enough to pick up two more buckets and walked out again. His eyes didn’t have time to adjust to the dark interior. I pulled my arm out and went to the corner where I could see him.

I jerked my head back as the door of the cabin opened. The one in overalls leaned out the door. “I heated up the beans for breakfast,” he said.

“Beans all we got?”

“Tiny’s ’sposed to go to the store.”

The guy with the buckets peeled off his gloves and apron, and the two men disappeared into the cabin. I slipped around to the front and went into the open door of the smokehouse. I saw what I needed right away. One method of cooking methamphetamine requires red phosphorus. Meth cooks get it from matches or road flares. I grabbed a flare from a box and ducked back out the door. I went around to my hole and reached inside the old smokehouse. With my pocketknife I sawed on the gas hose until I heard a satisfying hiss. I pulled the cap off the road flare and scratched it across the end. The flare burst to life, spitting a bright red flame into the cool morning air. I tossed it through the hole towards the other side of the building and ran for the outhouse, pulling my gun from behind my back as I ran.

Delbert Fish was just opening the door of the outhouse when I hit it with my shoulder. I jerked the door back open to find him holding his nose, blood already running down his face. He was groaning, and while he was still dazed, I ran the action on the gun and pointed the muzzle right at the bridge of his nose. His eyes widened as he looked down the bore of the forty-five.

“Stay quiet and you may live through this,” I said. He just blinked as I grabbed a handful of filthy undershirt and jerked him out of the outhouse.

I was expecting a spectacular explosion and fireball about now, a diversion so I could get Fish out of there, but what I heard was the distinctive rumble of a Harley as Tiny Buckman rode out of the woods on the four-wheeler trail on an old Panhead Harley-Davidson. A look of consternation wrinkled his brow, and quickly turned to blind rage as he recognized me. He reached down and brought out a short-barreled, lever-action rifle from a scabbard on the bike; he stepped off the Harley, letting it fall. I turned to run, shoving Fish back against the outhouse. He grabbed onto me as the whole outfit tipped over the side of the hill. The drop-off was steep and our combined weight splintered the small building. I lost any grip I had on Fish as we both tumbled head over heels down the steep slope. Small saplings and underbrush slowed our descent, but the rocky hillside took its toll on exposed flesh. I came to an abrupt stop, flat on my back, staring up through the canopy of oaks at a darkening sky. I turned my head to see Fish lying in a heap next to me. The steepness of the slope was interrupted by an old logging road that had stopped our tumble.

A loud whoosh and blast sent sheets of rusty tin and weathered boards raining down through the trees. The propane had finally ignited. I hoped that it would distract Tiny and buy me some time. I grabbed a dazed Fish by the arm and pulled him to his feet.

“I can’t breathe!” he managed to say. He was holding his side and wheezing, his face screwed up in pain.

“You’ll live,” I said. “We’ve got to move.” His knees started to buckle, so I gave him a hard kick in the butt.

“You’re gonna kill me!”

“No, dumb-ass, I’m going to keep you from getting killed. Etta Mae hired me to find you.”

His face was smeared with blood and dirt; a green sumac leaf was stuck to his cheek. I started to put his arm over my shoulder to help him, but he came to life and jerked away from me. He looked confused. He didn’t know whether to believe me or not.

A clap of thunder echoed through the valley. Fish and I stared at each other. We both heard the rush of feet on the soft leaves followed by a low growl. I reached behind my back for my gun, but it was gone. I must have lost it in the tumble down the hill. I watched helplessly as a brindle-colored ball of teeth and muscle shot out of the woods, rocketing toward Fish. He put up an arm even as he screamed. The dog launched itself at his throat, catching the arm instead between powerful jaws. Fish went down on his back, howling in pain and terror. The dog had its tail end toward me as it jerked its massive head back and forth, pulling on Fish’s arm as if to tear it off. With the classic two steps of a punter, I kicked up between the dog’s legs with a heavy thump that even sounded like a football. The dog yelped as it flipped up over its victim, landing in the trail where it lay thrashing in agony, its testicles crushed.

I grabbed Fish by his good arm and pulled him up. “Let’s go!” I yelled.

We both heard it at the same time, something else coming noisily through the brush. I caught a glimpse of another dog, this one struggling, dragging a length of chain that was catching on the foliage, slowing the dog’s progress.

“Oh God, it’s Rosie!” Fish looked at me pleadingly, his arm bleeding and useless, hanging at his side.

“Down the trail,” I yelled. “Run!”

He didn’t have to be told twice. Fish was surprisingly fast, and I was right behind him. The old logging road was dim and overgrown, but it was much easier going than bushwhacking through the timber. It curved around the brow of the hill toward where I had tied the mule.

The dog was gaining on us. The road was easier running for Rosie, dragging her chain. I was looking back at her when Fish stopped so suddenly, I almost bowled him over. He bent over with his good hand on his knee, coughing and wheezing, trying to get his breath. Fish was winded and bleeding so badly that even I could follow the trail he was leaving. He wasn’t going to make it. Not like this.

Rosie barked and growled; she slowed and crouched slightly as she squared up at me. I knew that I should find a weapon and stand my ground, but I couldn’t help myself. I turned and ran straight down the side of the mountain.

The dog came crashing after me as I started down the hill. I jumped over a deadfall, nearly going down. The dog tried to go around and the chain momentarily snagged. I kept running, but the terrain was getting steeper, and I was doing more falling than running. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move off to my left. At first I thought it was a deer; it startled me enough that I lost my footing and tumbled headlong down the rocky slope. I landed hard against a big oak tree.

The dog was almost on me. I knew that I couldn’t get away from it now. I picked up a rock the size of a softball, hoping to crack the demon’s skull when it came.

It wasn’t a deer that I had seen. It was the big sorrel mule that I had ridden in on. I guess I spooked him, running down the side of the mountain. I had looped the reins around a branch, and Abner had pulled them loose, gaining his freedom. He had his oversized ears laid back, and when that snarling, snapping pit bull came by, the big mule struck with the agility of a snake and sunk his teeth into the nape of the dog’s neck. Rosie was a pit-bull bitch that must have weighed fifty or sixty pounds, but the mule picked her up, twisted his head sideways, and slapped the dog into the rocky ground in the blink of an eye. I ducked as the chain whipped around and smacked the trunk of the tree that I was lying against. I have seen broncs in the rodeos of eastern Oklahoma that would go straight up and land on all four feet at once: a bone-jarring experience for a cowboy. Abner went up in the air, arched his back, and landed with all four hooves on the stunned dog; the air went out of her lungs like a smashed accordion. The act was so violent that I found myself cringing for the dog. The mule grabbed an ear in his teeth and shook the dog once more, but there was no fight left. The dog was quite dead.

Abner let go and backed away quietly. He looked at me, perhaps waiting for my approval. I spoke to him softly and put a hand out to gather the reins. He calmly reached over and stripped the leaves from a sapling and began munching, seemingly content. I patted his neck and praised him as I led him back up to the trail.

Fish hadn’t moved. He was sobbing as he held the weight of his damaged arm with the good one. He jerked his head up when he heard us coming. The terror in his eyes morphed into anger when he saw that it was me.

“I’m bleedin’ to death, you bastard!”

“You’re lucky she went after me,” I said. “Now shut up and hold still.” I took out my knife and cut one of the leather tie-downs from the saddle. The dog had severed an artery on Fish’s arm. I tied the leather above his elbow as a tourniquet, but he had already lost a lot of blood and was looking pale.

Fish was too weak to walk, so I helped him up onto the saddle. I was hoping that he could hang on until I could get him down to the highway. I was leading Abner, but also counting on the mule to find the way down. The logging road turned back up the ridge.

“Abner, I hope you know the way out. I sure as hell don’t.”

The mule turned and I followed, continuing up the logging road. I walked beside him, holding Fish in the saddle. The man was bent over the saddle horn, barely able to hold on. We came to a small patch of cedars that I thought I recognized from the trip in. The mule pushed his way through the limbs into a small clearing. It was the end of the road. Fish groaned and started to slide from the saddle. I caught him and helped him to the ground.

The forest canopy was replaced by angry, black clouds. The thunder was rumbling again, and the first few drops of rain began to patter on the cedars and the clumps of grass that struggled to survive in the rocky ground. The sky opened up and the rain began to fall as if dumped from a bucket. The sound of it drowned out all the other senses, and I was beginning to relax, thinking we had escaped.

This was when the four-wheeler burst through the trees and skidded to a halt. Tiny stood up on the machine and leveled his carbine even as I pulled Fish to his feet. Abner, spooked by the machine, brayed and ran off through the cedars. Bullets twanged through the branches as I shoved Fish through the evergreens and out of sight of our pursuer. I couldn’t see where we were going as I pushed Fish forward. He began shoving back, clawing at me and screaming. Tiny was running after us now, I could hear him grunting with effort and growling like some kind of animal. Fish was pushing back on me.

I felt Fish’s full weight on the handful of undershirt that I was gripping. I tried to pull him up as I realized that the ground was falling out beneath us. We had broken through the cedars only to find a bluff. The rain was beating down now, but I could hear the river below us. It must have been at least forty feet down, and I had no idea how deep the water was, but I gave Fish a mighty shove, and together we dropped into the void.

I let go of my prisoner during our descent. I found myself flailing my arms, trying to keep upright. It seemed like an eternity in the air. I plunged into the cold water of the stream, a churning, frothy torrent. The water was dark as I clawed my way back to the surface, gasping for precious air.

I broke the surface and heard a cough next to me. I turned to see Fish disappearing beneath the foam. I grabbed at him and managed to snag his long hair. I was vaguely aware of a shadow descending upon us. A mighty kathump! seemed to shake the river itself, as Tiny’s massive bulk slapped into the rocks next to the stream. I caught a glimpse of the big man’s empty stare, his face flattened against the rocks of the riverbank, as the current swept us away. It was not a pleasant sight.

I don’t remember much after that. I guess I managed to keep Fish’s head above water until some kayakers spotted us near the state highway bridge. Two tanned and athletic-looking fellows dragged us out of the rushing water. My teeth were chattering with the cold. Fish didn’t even have enough energy to shiver. One of the kayakers had a signal on his cell and was calling 911.

“Am I gonna make it?” Fish asked. His speech was slurred and his face had a ghastly pallor.

“You better,” I said. I would hate to face Miss Etta Mae if I got her nephew killed. “By the way, Delbert, can you swim at all?”

“Not a lick,” he said, weakly.

“A Fish that can’t swim.” I just shook my head.

Delbert Fish testified at his trial that Seymour “Tiny” Buckman had beaten and raped the girl. The DNA evidence agreed with him. I guess Miss Etta Mae was right that Delbert Fish was not guilty of that crime. She was willing to ignore his culpability on a host of other infractions that sent him back into the Arkansas penal system. She volunteered for a bible study through Prison Fellowship, so she could work with Delbert. I don’t know if Fish ever repented, but I took the two hundred that Etta Mae offered. It didn’t seem like much for what I did, but I got the ten grand in reward money. Besides, the woman had spanked me for something I didn’t even do at a vacation bible school one time. I figured she owed me that much.

The Arkansas state police seemed to appreciate the fact that I had burned down a major methamphetamine lab. They rounded up most of a biker gang that had been distributing the stuff in the four-state area. I went back to the site of the old still to retrieve my .45 semiauto. My dad had bought the gun for sixteen dollars after he got out of the service, and it had sentimental value. The old fellow who owned the store closed it up for a day and took me fishing. That little creek had more smallmouth, and bigger ones, than I had ever seen before. It’s a wonder that Field and Stream hasn’t done a feature on it yet. After a couple of write-ups in the local papers, I got another call from one of those big-time private-detective agencies. It was tempting, I must admit. But how much does a man really need to be happy? I think I’ll just flag down the drink-cart gal for another Budweiser, finish the back nine, and meet Karen, my on-again-off-again girlfriend, at the Nineteenth Hole. I think it’s all-you-can-eat crab legs tonight.

Copyright © 2012 by Jim Davis. Black Mask Magazine title, logo, and mask device copyright © 2012 by Keith Alan Deutsch. Licensed by written permission.

Cover Them with Flowers

by Marilyn Todd

The central characters in this new story, Lysander, head of the Spartan secret police, and Iliona, high priestess of the Temple of Eurotas, also appear in three novels by Marilyn Todd set in the fifth century B.C.E. The most recent book, Still Waters (Severn House/April 2011) was praised by Publishers Weekly for its “solid puzzle and... intriguing lead character.” Booklist applauded “Todd’s knack for painting antiquity with a spectacularly suspenseful brush...”

* * * *

Below the majestic peaks of Mount Parnon, Night sloughed off her dark veil and handed the baton of responsibility to her close friend, the Dawn. Daughter of Chaos, mother of Pain, Strife, Death, and Deception, Night continued her journey. Gliding on silent, star-studded feet towards her mansion beyond the Ocean that encircled the world. Here she would sleep, until Twilight nudged her awake and her labours would begin all over again.

At the foot of the temple steps, Iliona rinsed her fingers in the lustral basin, carved from the finest Parian marble, and lifted her face to the sun. In the branches of the plane trees, the bronze wind chimes tinkled in the breeze. White doves pecked at the crumbs of caraway bread that was baked daily especially for them. Whether the seeds were addictive, or the pigeons were simply content with their lot, the High Priestess had no idea. But the doves rarely strayed from the precinct, and it wasn’t because their wings had been clipped.

Another few minutes and the first of the workers would start to arrive. Scribes, libation pourers, musicians, and heralds. Basket bearers, janitors, and the choirs. Every day was the same. They would barely have time to change into their robes before the sacred grounds were swamped with merchants, wanting to know if today was the day they’d grow rich. Wives, desperate to know if last night’s efforts had left them with child. The poor, fearful of what lay ahead. Cripples would flock to the shrine, seeking miracles. The sick would come seeking cures. Wisely or not, Iliona had taken it upon herself to interpret their dreams, sometimes the behaviour of birds, even the shapes of the clouds, to give them the peace that they needed.

But for now — for these precious few minutes — that peace was hers, and she basked in its solitude. The soft bleating of goats floated down from the hills. Close at hand came the repetitive call of a hoopoe. Letting the sun warm her face, she breathed in the scent of a thousand wildflowers carried down from the mountains and over the wide, fertile meadows. Narcissus, crown daisies, crocus, and muscari... along with, unless she missed her guess, a faint hint of leather and wood smoke.

“I’m beginning to think the rumours are true,” she said without turning round. “That the Krypteia never sleeps.”

“You should know better than to listen to gossip,” chided the leather and wood smoke through a mouth full of gravel. “I sleep.” He paused. “Upside down in a cave, admittedly. Cocooned in my soft velvet wings.”

The hair at the back of her scalp prickled. If the chief of Sparta’s secret police was making jokes, it must be serious.

“What can I do for you, Lysander?”

Had he discovered that she was still aiding deserters? A crime punishable by being blinded by pitch and thrown, bound and gagged, in the Torrent of Torment. Or that she was rescuing deformed babies that were thrown over the cliff...? Slipping food to prisoners in the dungeons...?

“Me? My lady, I wouldn’t dare to presume.” His voice was slow and measured, but the teasing note was unconcealed “Your country, on the other hand, would be immensely grateful for your input and wisdom.” He cleared his throat, instantly changing the mood. “Three women have been found hanged.”

Now she turned.

“Three?” But for all the shock, what was uppermost in Iliona’s mind was that he looked older than the last time they’d met. The lines round his eyes were as deep as plough furrows, and there were more silver strands framing his temples. On the other hand, his short warrior kilt showed no weakness of thigh muscle, and his chest still put a strain on the seams of his tunic. “On the same night?”

“Same night, same house,” he said, explaining how they were three generations of the same family. “Girl of fourteen, her mother, and grandmother. And as much as I would like to dismiss this as some eccentric death pact, or even double murder followed by suicide, there were no stools that could have been kicked away. No chairs, no tables, no blocks of wood. Nothing.”

Small wonder he looked weary. However feared and hated the secret police, when it comes to women being strung up like hams, even the toughest among them are affected.

“It’s no mean feat to creep into a household, overpower three women, and hang them,” she pointed out. There would be servants. Dogs. Any number of obstacles.

“The alarm horn wasn’t blown,” he said. “In fact, there were no signs of a struggle in or outside the house.”

Which might, she mused, be because the killer was cunning enough to cover his tracks. Or maybe obsessively tidy—

Now that acolytes had begun milling round the precinct, lighting the incense in the burners and sweeping the steps with purifying hyssop, Iliona suggested a stroll down to the river. Here, shaded by willows and poplars, they would be able to speak without being overheard. Gathering up her white pleated robes, she found a perch on a rock and watched a heron stalk the lush grasses on the far bank for frogs, while moorhens dabbled in and out of the rushes and butterflies fed off the thistles. The river was at its fullest, thanks to the snowmelts, but the Eurotas was one of the few rivers in Greece that didn’t dry up in high summer. That’s why the river god was so revered by the people, and why so many flocked to his temple.

Why peace was so hard to come by.

“This is a monstrous crime, truly it is. But I don’t understand why the Krypteia is involved.”

Unless the victim was royalty or a member of the Council, murder was hardly the preserve of the secret police. Much less its ruthless commander.

“Two reasons.” Lysander picked up a pebble, dropped to one kilted knee, and skimmed the stone over the water. Flip-flip-flip, eight times it jumped. But then everyone jumped for the Krypteia. “Primarily, this triple murder will send shock waves round Sparta, and I need to neutralize the situation before it undermines morale.”

To remain the strongest land power in Greece, Sparta had turned itself into a nation of warriors, with boys joining the army at the age of seven. In the barracks, they would learn the values of endurance through discipline, hardship, deprivation, and pain, pushing their bodies to limits that most men couldn’t stand. Not for nothing was the mighty Spartan army feared wherever it went. But with the men away, protecting smaller and weaker city-states from being gobbled up by their neighbours, they had every right to expect their womenfolk to be safe. Murder had suddenly become a political issue.

“Also.” Flip-flip-flip, another eight times. “This was the family of one of my generals.”

“And naturally you owe it to him to bring the culprit to justice?”

“Not exactly.” His smile was as cold as a prostitute’s heart. “This man is after my job, and I don’t intend to give him a reason to get it.”

Iliona watched the swallows dip over the river for flies. Smelled the wild mountain thyme on the breeze. “What has this to do with me?”

Something twitched in his cheek. “Who else sees through the eyes of the blind, and hears the voice of the voiceless? You count the grains of sand in the desert and measure the drops in the ocean.”

She jumped to her feet.

“How dare you mock my work! You know damn well that the poor, the weak, the dispossessed, and the lonely come to this temple because they need something to lean on. Well, the support I give them is solid and sound, and it matters this—” she snapped her fingers “—that my oracular powers are fake. I set riddles, Lysander, in order that these people can find the solutions to their problems themselves, and don’t get me wrong. These murders are tragic.” Desperately so. “But since I don’t know the women, I have nothing useful to contribute. On this occasion, I am unable to help you.”

Without pausing for breath, she rattled off a long list of tasks that could not be abandoned. Oracles aside, who would preside over the endless rituals and sacrifices? Dispense oaths in the name of the river god? Log donations and offerings in the various treasuries?

“The altars would not be properly purified, there are mountains of letters to dictate, and let’s not forget the accounts that need overseeing, the various marriages and funerals that needed officiating, and not least, the preparations for the forthcoming spring carnival.”

“Hm.”

For a long time he said nothing. Just kept flipping pebbles over the water. She waited. Baiting him might be argued as the height of stupidity, but if he had come to arrest her, he would have done it by now. A girl had her pride, after all! At the same time, High Priestesses aren’t exactly naive. She knew it was only a matter of time before he resorted to blackmailing or bullying her into cooperating, as he had so many times in the past. Even so, she had no intention of making it easy for him, and job security wasn’t her problem. In fact, many more deserters would be helped, babies rescued, prisoners comforted, with a new man at the helm of the Krypteia. One who did not know her past.

So it came as a surprise when Lysander rose to his feet and said quietly, “That is your answer?”

She squared her shoulders. Wondered what pitch smelled like, when it was close to the eyes. “It is.”

“Then I bid you a very good day, Iliona.” He placed his fist on his breast in salute. “May Zeus bring you all that you wish for.”

A chill ran from her tiara to her white sandalled toes. He was a fighter, a warrior, a leader of men, who used every weapon in the book to win and get what he wanted. The head of the secret police did not back down. He was up to something, the bastard.

“Wait,” she called, but he’d already gone.

Fear crawled in the pit of her stomach.

Night rose, slinking through the Gate of Dreams, to work again her dark powers over the earth. The days passed, the nail on the wall calendar marking their journey, highlighting those days which were propitious for planting, those which were auspicious for building, as well as those which cursed folk for telling lies. Not once did Iliona stop looking over her shoulder, but as time passed, she began to relax.

Sacrifices were presided over with ritualist precision, oaths were dispensed in the name of the river god, donations and offerings were logged in the various treasuries. The altars were purified. Properly, of course. Those mountains of letters were duly dictated, the accounts managed with customary efficiency, and, thanks to the High Priestess’s efforts, the spring festival went off without a hitch. Even the procession of children carrying cakes stuck with burning torches managed to reach the sacred pine tree without anyone tripping up. Usually at least one child would set fire to the carpet of needles, and last year the beekeeper’s daughter exceeded all records, setting the harp player’s tunic alight as she stumbled, then singeing his hair when the poor man tried to stamp out the flames.

“You’re working too hard,” said the Keeper of the Sacred Flame, one of the few true friends Iliona had.

“It’s the season,” she lied. “Everything comes at once in the spring.”

And to prove it, she went off to burn incense.

“You’re not sleeping,” observed the temple physician.

“It’s the season,” she shot back. “The nights are too hot.”

And to prove it, she walked round wafting a fan.

As for the triple murders, the entire state was indeed sickened by the slaughter of three defenceless women. What kind of monster would do this? And yet, thought Iliona, in a country of full-time professional soldiers who virtually lived at the barracks, Spartan women were strong. How was it possible to overpower three at the same time?

As well as horrific, she found the crime deeply unsettling.

Being a second cousin to the king, she had many contacts at the palace and, through them, kept abreast of events. She learned, for instance, that, with typical Krypteia thoroughness, Lysander’s agents had explored every avenue in their attempt to bring the killer to justice. Could this have been a grudge killing, to punish the husband? Goodness knows, an uncompromising general collects enemies like a small boy collects caterpillars. Except there was nothing in his military history to point to a need for such dire retribution, nor in his personal life. Was the wife having an affair which had soured, inspiring the lover to take revenge? Apparently, running the farm in the general’s absence left no time for romance; had the mother-in-law upset someone? Again, this was ruled out — but the daughter? Wasn’t she engaged to be married next year? What about the family of the future in-laws? Was there someone who didn’t approve of the political union? At the time of the killing, the general was heading an assault in the Thessalian hinterland, making his alibi more solid than iron. Which was not to say he couldn’t have paid an assassin to wipe out his womenfolk. But why would he???

Through those same contacts, Iliona read the reports of every interview and interrogation that had been conducted and monitored the leads on the literally dozens of suspects. Consequently, she grew as frustrated as the investigators, since everyone and yet no one was in the frame for these murders. Was one woman the target, she asked herself? Forcing the killer to silence the others after his crime was discovered? But why hanging? Why in a line...?

Meanwhile, life at the Temple of Eurotas continued on its daily course of setting riddles, interpreting dreams, and committing enough treasonable offences to tempt Iliona to blind herself with pitch and save the authorities the trouble. Out across the valley, the buds on the vines uncoiled into leaf. Willows were cut to be woven into baskets, the olive trees were pruned back, oxen were gelded, and thousands of baby birds hatched. But as the spring progressed and the nestlings left home, the killings continued to dance at the back of her mind.

As did the shadow of the Krypteia.

A month to the day after Lysander’s visit, Iliona was at the house of her cousin, Lydia. Now in most city-states, the decision to expose weak or deformed babies was the preserve of the father, thus leaving a certain amount of room for manoeuvre. In Sparta, however, where virtually every male citizen was a warrior of one kind or another, this decision was down to the state. And the state liked to decide very early on whether his little limbs looked like they would grow straight enough to grow up and march thousands of miles in full battle dress. Or whether he had a good, loud bawl, indicating that he would eventually be strong enough to throw spears and go hand-to-hand with the enemy. Those who failed the test were taken to the Valley of Rejection up in the mountains and thrown into the abyss.

Little room for manoeuvre in that.

Unless, of course, someone happened to have a fishing net rigged up and ready to catch them. Someone who, when the little mite was hurled into space, was also on hand to heave a blanket-covered stone into the gorge. One that made the right kind of thud when it landed.

The state called it treason. Iliona called it giving childless artisans the family they craved.

Aware that, one of these days, her luck would run out.

But for now, the sun shone on the jagged peaks of Taygetus, still capped in snow, and the Hoeing Song drifted on the breeze from the men working the fields. Lydia’s husband, like the rest of the army, was off fighting someone else’s battles, an annual exodus which, with spectacular regularity, sparked a glut of babies nine months after their return. Another reason why the fathers did not make that all-important decision. They weren’t here.

“Who’s a bonny boy, then?”

Iliona cradled the infant in her arms, while Lydia sat in the corner, grey-faced and shaking with fear. Her son was not deformed, but, arriving eighteen days before his due date, he was certainly a weak little baby. Now, five days after the birth and in accordance with the law, the elders had gathered at the family shrine in the courtyard to pass judgment on the strength of his bawl.

“They’re going to take him.” Lydia had no doubts. “My baby, my only child, and they’re going to reject him.” Tears trickled down her face. “Suppose I’m unable to bear more children? Suppose—”

“Dry your tears,” Iliona said softly. “I have cast the runes, read the portents, and heard the voice of the river god dancing over the pebbles. Eurotas does not lie, Lydia. You will watch your son grow into a man.”

Runes and pebbles be damned. What didn’t lie was the vial of willow-bark infusion secreted in the folds of her robes.

“Gentlemen.”

Making ritualistic gestures to disguise the bitter liquid that she dripped on his tongue, Iliona handed the baby over for inspection.

“By Hera,” gasped the astonished elders. “They will hear this little man in Athens!”

Consequently, the celebrations were especially fierce, with flutes and trumpets, singing and laughter, and wine flowing freer than midwinter rain.

Which made the herald’s announcement all the more shocking.

“On the road to Messenia, just beyond the fork,” he said, “the bodies of three women have been found, hanging from the beams of their farmhouse.”

Daughter, mother, grandmother. Exactly as before.

Surrounded by olive groves on one side and paddocks on the other, the farm’s main output was barley, where field after field of feathered stalks rippled in the warm, sticky breeze. Another week, two at the most, thought Iliona, spurring her stallion up the dusty track, and the crop would be ready for harvesting. Making it all the more poignant that the women would not see it.

Reining her horse as she approached the buildings, she glanced along this green and fertile valley. Enjoying a better climate than most of Greece, and with a constant flow of water, Sparta was not only self-sufficient, but in a position to export large quantities of grain and livestock. Add on a lively trade in iron, porphyry, racehorses, and timber, and it was easy to see why the state had grown so rich. Of course, like everywhere else, land ownership was only available to citizens, and tax was deemed too degrading for men who put their lives on the line every day. Instead, the state taxed the artisans who made their armour and weaponry. And did so without ever seeing the irony of that decision.

“I’m surprised the temple can spare you,” Lysander drawled, coming out of the house to meet her.

Iliona tethered her stallion beside the water trough, shook the red dust off her robes, and thought that if he expected her to apologize, he was in for a long wait. “May I see the murder scene?”

She expected him to make another sarcastic comment, possibly along the lines of surely she, who could see through the eyes of the blind, had seen it in the sacred bowl? Instead, he ushered her past the porter’s lodge and through the atrium in silence. Country villas were all pretty much the same in design, being built around a central courtyard with a colonnade running round the sides. What differentiated them was the lavishness of the frescoes, the quality of the stone, the lushness of the couches, and the richness of the tapestries on the walls. There was little of that here. A hoplite’s family, not a lofty general’s. A family who were scraping to get by.

“Are you sure you want to go in?” Lysander paused at the entrance to the storeroom to light an oil lamp. “We haven’t cut them down yet.”

We? As far as Iliona could tell, there was no one else here. In the hush, she could smell vinegar, honey, and olive oil, and when he lifted the lamp to light the way through the archway, she noticed that the air was hazy with flour.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I’m sure.”

She wasn’t. Far from it. But if she’d gone with Lysander one month before, maybe these women would still be alive. Facing them was the least she could do.

“Your frown tells me something strikes you,” he said, setting the lamp on the shelf.

“The distance between them.” It was the first thing she’d noticed. After the obvious. “The spacing between each noose is almost identical.”

“Not almost.” He held up both hands so that his thumb-tips met, then splayed his fingers. “Exactly three spans between each rope, just like last time.”

“You didn’t tell me that at the temple.”

“I believe you were busy.”

Chip, chip, chip. He wasn’t going to let her forget her refusal to help, and frankly, she didn’t blame him. “Still no witnesses?”

“The farm doesn’t employ many labourers, and those they do live in huts in the hills.”

“But three women,” Iliona said. “I mean, look at them. They’re hardly pale, puny creatures.”

The grandmother had arms like a blacksmith’s, the mother’s legs were like tree trunks, and even the girl, not yet fourteen, was a strapping young thing.

“They wouldn’t be mistaken for Athenians, that’s for sure.” He almost smiled. “However, one thing is certain.” The smile hardened into a grimace. “I won’t bore you with detail, but if there’s one thing I know, Iliona, it’s death. These poor bitches were alive when they were hanged.”

Yet there were no scratched fingers, from where they’d clawed at the rope. No dishevelled clothing. Just dolls hanging, three in a row. All evenly spaced. “He drugged them,” she said.

“That would be my guess.” Lysander rubbed at his jaw. “After which he either dragged or carried them here to the storeroom, but if you look around, the herbs on the floor to deter vermin are intact.”

“More likely they’ve been brushed back into place.”

The killer was as she’d suspected. Tidy to the point of obsession. Worse, he was cunning, careful, and intelligent with it. She cast her eyes over the various sacks and amphorae lined up round the storeroom. That was what Lysander had been doing when she arrived. Untying, unstoppering, sniffing, and testing. Hence the fusion of smells in the air. He obviously hadn’t found anything pertinent, though. More a question of thoroughness than anything else.

“Aah.” Her mouth pursed in compassion as she picked up a small wooden daisy among the dried stalks of rosemary, tansy, and lemon balm beneath the daughter’s feet. “This was probably her lucky charm, which fell out of her clothing when—”

“Let me see that!” Lysander snatched at the lantern for a closer look, and then swore. A short, sharp, vicious expletive.

“What is it?” she asked, because suddenly he was scrabbling around beneath the other two bodies, swearing harder than ever.

“I found a carved rose on the floor of the first house,” he said. “Right below the mother, but—” more expletives “—didn’t give it a thought.”

He held out two more carved flowers, one from under each of the other bodies in the storeroom. A daisy, a rose, and a lily. “How could I have been so stupid?”

His anger pulsed through the windowless room as if it had substance and form.

“How could you have imagined it was anything other than trivial?” she replied. “I also dismissed it.”

But Iliona was not the Krypteia. The Krypteia don’t make mistakes...

“I need to revisit the first scene,” he spat.

As it happened, the house had hardly been touched in the month since its occupants were ferried across the Styx to the land of the shades. In no time, he’d recovered two more wooden flowers among the strewing herbs on the floor.

A daisy, a rose, and a lily.

The moon was full, dulling the starlight, as Iliona stood in the clearing in the hills. Twinkling silver far below was the river whose god she served, and whose annual floods brought wealth and plenty. It took an hour to cross the valley by foot, but three days to travel its length on a horse. Through olive groves, barley fields, paddocks, and vineyards. A tranquillity that was now broken, thanks to one man. A monster.

In the two weeks since the second murders, the general had been pushing hard for Lysander to step down. His incompetence had led to a reign of terror, he’d stormed to the Council, and Iliona could only imagine the grief and despair that was churning inside him. With his family wiped out, anger was all he had left.

Which was better, though? For the secret police to be led by a man whose impulses were driven by blinding emotion? Or an honourable man, who would not baulk at blinding her with pitch before throwing her into the Torrent of Torment? She stared at the rugged tracks crisscrossing this red, stony land like white scars in the moonlight. Smelled the pungent moss under her feet. Listened to a stream frothing its way downhill, over the rocks. With their dark cliffs and secret caverns, these mountains were at once dangerous, beautiful, treacherous, and magnetic. No different from Lysander himself.

But how do you define beauty? The scent of dog rose had suddenly become cloying. The sight of daisies made her feel sick.

She listened to the music made by the squeaking of bats and the soft hiss of the wind in the oaks. If only she could unravel the significance of those flowers! Of the spacing between the nooses! Of choosing three women of the same family...

A twig snapped. She looked round. Knew that, if he wanted, he could have crept up and not made a sound. The smell of wood smoke and leather mingled with the aromas of moss and wild mountain sage, and in the moonlight his eyes were as hard as a wolf’s. She wondered how Lysander had found her hiding place. And whether he’d seen the deserter she’d just helped to escape...

“Would you believe my orders—” he leaned his back against a tree trunk and folded his arms over his chest “—are to identify and protect every household that fits the pattern for the killings.”

An impossible task. Sparta currently had three thousand warriors scattered all over Greece, every last one of them landowners, and given that they were all aged between eighteen and thirty, probably two thirds had widowed mothers and daughters living at home. Their sons, of course, would be in the barracks, while the older men, retired veterans, were either working their own farms or employed in auxiliary military work. Obviously people were keeping an eye on their neighbours, while remaining vigilant themselves. But spring was a busy time on the land. The helots who worked it needed close supervision, or they would rise up and rebel, or take off.

“The general hates you,” she said.

“He holds me responsible.”

“Either way, he’s engineered it so that you will either fail in your efforts to protect every woman in Sparta, or be forced to disobey orders.”

His lip twisted. “Providing I can put a stop to this murdering sonofabitch, the Council will forget that I challenged their authority.”

The deserter... Fifteen years old... Was he already lying in a gully with his throat slit?

“The moon,” Iliona said, wondering if Lysander’s dagger was still warm from the boy’s blood. “The moon has three phases. Waxing, full, and waning.”

“Three women!” He jerked upright. “Also waxing, full, and waning!”

“Exactly. And all killed at the new moon.” Iliona dragged her eyes away from his scabbard. Straightened her shoulders, and swallowed. “Suggesting the daughters might be the key.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But how in the name of Zeus did he manage to drug them?”

“That second family,” Lysander said slowly. “He had to have drugged them out in the courtyard; otherwise he would have strung them up from the beams in the kitchen like the first three.”

“You think the killer might have been a guest?”

Whoever he was, he was a coward who craved power. And could only get it when his victims couldn’t fight back.

“Our investigations haven’t turned up any visitors, and don’t forget the first trio. Not many guests are entertained in the kitchen.” Lysander clucked his tongue. “Not at the general’s level.”

“What about woodcarvers?”

“What about them? There are hundreds inside the city alone, and none of them sells flowers like the ones placed under the bodies. As a trade, it fits your theory of precise, intelligent, and tidy. Then again, every man and boy who’s ever owned a knife — which is everyone — has had a go at carving at some stage.”

Needles and haystacks, needles and haystacks.

Would this monster ever be caught?

Two weeks later, when the new moon scratched her silver crescent in the sky, Iliona found her answer. In a house deep in the artisan quarter, three more women were found dangling, with the same flowers under their feet. The daisy, the rose, and the lily. Now the terror was palpable. These were not exalted citizens. Landowners and farmers. They were tradespeople. The family of a humble harness-maker, who was away in Thrace, supporting the cavalry.

But that wasn’t the worst of the matter. Three days before the moon was due to rise, the women brought in supplies and barricaded themselves indoors. No one had been allowed in, they wouldn’t even open the shutters, and the alarm was only raised when their neighbour, an Egyptian gem-cutter, could elicit no response. He and the wheelwright broke down the door.

This, obviously, was the work of no human hand.

Sparta had angered the gods.

“Bullshit.” Lysander paced the flagstones of Iliona’s courtyard, spiking his hands through his long warrior hair. “Complete and utter bollocks.”

While he prowled, Iliona sat on a white marble bench in the shade of a fig tree, surrounded by scrolls of white parchment.

“I agree.”

The gods controlled the weather, the seasons, human fate, and emotions. That was why they needed to be propitiated. To ensure fruitfulness, justice, victory, and truth, and offset famine, tempest, and drought. True, Deception wove her celestial charms while men slept, as did Absent-mindedness, Panic, and Pain. But so did the Muses, as well as Peace, Hope, and Passion, and the goddesses of beauty, mirth, and good cheer.

“All the appropriate sacrifices have been made,” she continued.

To Zeus, a ram purified with oak. To Poseidon, a bull, another to Apollo, honey cakes to Artemis, and grain to Demeter. The gods had no reason to argue with Sparta.

“Also, the Olympians might take life, but not in this way,” she added. “They kill, but they do not leave flowers.”

“If we knew what it meant, this daisy, roses, and lily business— Are these my files?” He picked up one of the scrolls littering her bench.

“Duplicates,” she lied.

There had been too many for her scribes to copy, forcing Iliona to resort to the one thing that always oils wheels in the palace. Bribery.

“These are reports from the initial investigation,” he said, leafing through. “Why are you going through them again—? Ah.” He bowed. “You see through the eyes of the blind and hear the voice of the dumb, and no, before you throw another tantrum, I am not mocking you this time. You work your oracles with trickery and mirrors. The quickness of the hand deceives the eye.”

Iliona watched an early two-tailed pasha butterfly fluttering around the arbute. Listened to the fountain splashing in the middle of the courtyard.

“Suppose,” she said, “that the flowers are a smoke screen?”

“Like the precisely measured distance between the nooses?”

“Both suggest a ritualistic murder, but suppose that was the killer’s intention?”

“Hm.” Lysander looked up at the cloudless blue sky and seconds dragged into minutes. “We didn’t question the family of the second victims to check for alibis, therefore no leads were followed up, as we did for the general’s women.”

Like a Parthian’s bow, this was a long shot, Iliona thought. But suppose there was a cold-blooded killer out there, covering his tracks with a series of murders? If so, how in Hades would they pinpoint which of the nine women was the real target?

Dusk was cloaking the temple precinct, softening the outlines of the treasuries, gymnasia, watercourses, and statues. Up in the forests, the wolves and the porcupines would be stirring. Badgers and foxes would slink from their lairs. Down by the river, bats darted round the willows and alders. Frogs croaked from the reed beds. As the darkness deepened, Iliona watched moths dance round the flickering sconces, while the scent of rosemary and mountain thyme mingled with incense from the shrine.

“You were right.”

She jumped. One of these days, she thought, and Lysander would slit the throat of his own bloody shadow.

“His name is Tibios, and he did indeed serve the temple of Selene. Well done.”

The moon was her starting point. In the old days, long before the Olympians were born, Selene used to be worshipped in her three phases of womanhood. Developing, mature, then declining. In these enlightened days of science and mathematics, only those initiated into the priesthood even remembered this ancient wisdom — suggesting the killer was familiar with the old ways. Whether the murders were ritualistic, or whether his elaborate methods were simply a smoke screen, was irrelevant. It was a base on which to start building.

From then on, logic prevailed. The new moon was synonymous with youth, implying the intended victim was one of the daughters. But unions between citizens are contracted when the children are still in the cradle, whereas artisan women are free to wed whom they please. At sixteen, the harness-maker’s daughter would have been casting around.

“With nothing else to go on,” Iliona said, “the theory was worth testing. I’m just relieved it panned out.”

“Which is why,” Lysander said, “my men are holding him in your office.”

Ah. “You have insufficient evidence to bring him to a trial, so you’re hoping I will draw a confession out of him.”

“The torture chamber is notoriously unreliable, and besides—” he shot her a sideways glance “—I always believe in finishing what I started. Don’t you?”

She made a quick calculation of what his thugs might find among her records. Surely the Krypteia didn’t think she was foolish enough to commit incriminating evidence to paper?

“The harness-maker’s daughter was called Phoebe,” he said, explaining on their way across the precinct how questioning friends and family had led to a young acolyte who had been courting her.

“For a while, it seemed promising. Tibios is handsome enough, and he soon proved himself courteous, attentive, and generous.”

The problems arose when he became too attentive. Too generous. Instead of one bottle of perfume, he would send her a dozen. It was the same with wine cakes and honeycombs. He would present her with several new bath sponges every week. And positively showered her with cheap jewels and trinkets.

“Phoebe found it overpowering, but endearing,” Lysander continued. “It was only when Tibios began to stipulate which tunics she should wear and who she could meet with, and got angry when she refused to comply, that she realized this was not the man she wanted to marry.”

Iliona was beginning to understand. Intelligent, shrewd, and obsessively tidy were the hallmarks of a controlling nature. Men like that don’t take kindly to rejection.

In fact, many don’t accept it, full stop.

“My lady, meet Tibios. Tibios, meet the lady who outsmarted you and secured justice for nine vulnerable women.”

Handsome, certainly. Cheekbones a tad sharp, eyes a little too narrow, but yes. She could see why Phoebe would be attracted to him. Even in shackles, he was cocky.

“I’m the one who needs justice.” The acolyte leaned so far back in the chair that its front legs were off the tiles. “Bearing false witness is a serious crime, but that’s what comes when you misinterpret entrails and cloud formations. Or was it rustling leaves and the warbling of doves?”

“You presume,” Iliona breezed, “that you were important enough to warrant consulting the river god, but as it happens, Eurotas doesn’t concern himself with parasites. You were just sloppy.”

“Sloppy?” The legs of the chair came crashing down. “From what I’ve heard, the killer left nothing to chance! Nothing!”

As though he hadn’t spoken, Iliona dripped essential oils into the burning lamps, driving out the smells of ink and dusty parchment and infusing the room with sandalwood, camphor, and myrrh. Behind the chair, the guards had merged into the shadows. Leaning against the wall in the corner, Lysander could have been carved out of marble.

“That last house was barricaded from the inside,” Tibios spat. “Tell me how getting past that isn’t smart.”

“Well, now, that’s exactly what I mean.” Iliona picked up an ostrich feather fan and swept it over the shelves as though it was a duster. “You didn’t need to bypass their security.”

“That’s because the killer’s a god. Passing through walls, or changing his shape to an insect and able to slip under doors.”

Tibios was too full of himself to question why a high priestess should be doing her own housework. Or notice that she was so unaccustomed to it that she was using the fan upside down.

“Alas, Tibios, the truth is more mundane.” Swish-swish-swish as though he was secondary to her task. “You were already inside.”

Another shot in the dark, although enquiries at the temple of Selene confirmed that Tibios had been off sick for the three days prior to the murder.

“You knew this family. You knew their habits and your way around, and so, having hidden yourself in their cellar, how simple to slip a tincture of poppy juice into their wine that night, and then pff! Next you’re stringing them up like hams over a fire.”

“There you go again. You keep saying me.”

“Only because of that little stash of carvings you thought you’d hidden away. Daisies, roses, and what was that other thing, Captain? Lilies? Not that it matters,” she continued airily. “Your attitude was that if you couldn’t have Phoebe, nobody would, so you killed the first two families as a smoke screen—”

“Like Hades I did!” Even now, believing the lie that the captain had actually found his cache of wooden flowers, Tibios was no less arrogant. “I wanted those bitches scared out of their skins. I wanted them to know they’d be next. To feel the fear in their veins and sit awake at night, worrying — and they were. Even though they’d barricaded themselves in, they couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. It wasn’t just Phoebe. They ganged up against me, the whole bloody tribe, so they needed to know that you can’t just toss me aside. That I had power over them, over you, over the whole bloody state.” A smug grin spread over his face. “The smoke screen was the fourth family I intended to kill.”

He may have been motivated by vengeance at the beginning, but this boy enjoyed his work. He would not have stopped at four.

“Exactly how did you get that message across to these women?” Iliona laid down the fan, and now there was a contemptuous edge to her voice. “They were unconscious when you crept out of the cellar. Unconscious when you slipped the noose round their necks, and unconscious when you hauled on the rope. That doesn’t sound very powerful to me. In fact, it seems more like the hand of a coward.”

“No, no, I—”

“The trial will probably be halted for laughter once the jury hears how this big, strong Champion of Vengeance spent three days hiding behind a sack and peeing in an olive jar.”

“It’s no different from a hunter lying in wait,” he protested. “Ouch!”

“Ooh, did that hurt?” Iliona jabbed the inside of his nostril a second time with the sharpened quill of her pen. “That doesn’t bode well, does it?” she asked the head of the Krypteia. “Remind me again what the punishment is for killing a citizen?”

“First the guilty party is paraded naked through the streets,” Lysander rumbled. “It draws a large crowd, so of course if someone should throw something nasty at him, or take a shot with their fists, there’s little my men can do to protect him.”

“That’s not fair,” Tibios whined. “I’m entitled to civility at my execution!”

“And you shall have it,” Lysander assured him. “With great civility, you will be thrown into the Ravine of Redemption, where you can — with even more civility — contemplate your crimes as you lie bleeding.”

“That’s for traitors! You can’t do that to me! I’m no traitor—”

“There will be no food, no drink, no comfort down there. Just you, your broken bones, and the wolves that circle closer each day.”

“Not forgetting the moon, so white and so bright overhead,” Iliona said. “Which will wane, and then wax again, before you eventually join the Land of the Shades.”

“Don’t think you can aid your own death either,” Lysander rumbled. “Your hands will be tied behind your back when you’re thrown. With the greatest civility, of course.”

Above the rugged peaks and fertile valleys, Night cast her web of dreams to the music of crickets and the nightingale’s haunting song. Tomorrow, the countryside would ring with the drums and trumpets of the annual Corn Festival, as the first ears of wheat were offered to the goddess Demeter. How sad that the women who had worked so tirelessly to bring their crops to maturity were not here to lay their gifts on the altar.

“I suppose you were hoping it was the general behind the killings?”

The guards had long since dragged Tibios off to the dungeons, but Lysander showed no inclination to accompany them. Instead, he’d taken the chair vacated by the killer, folded his hands behind his neck, and closed his eyes. It was too much for Iliona to hope he’d nodded off. As she’d said before, the Krypteia don’t sleep. Even in a cocoon of their own velvet wings.

“I can’t tell you the satisfaction that clapping him in irons would have given me after the things he wrote to the Council.” A rumble sounded in the back of his throat. It was, she realized, the first time she’d heard Lysander laugh. “Unfortunately, as much as the general wants my job, I wasn’t convinced he’d go to those lengths.”

“But you checked anyway.”

One eye opened. “I checked.”

Iliona poured herself a goblet of dark, fruity wine. Somehow, she thought she would need it. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to what looked like a squishy cushion wrapped in blue cotton under her desk.

“Oh, didn’t I say?” The eye closed. “It’s a present.”

She drank her wine, all of it, before unwrapping the bundle. “A hunting net?”

“I find it quite remarkable, don’t you, how so many women who were previously considered barren have been blessed with a much-wanted child over the last four or five years?”

Sickness rolled in the pit of her stomach.

“Spartan justice is famed throughout the world,” he continued levelly. “Not only done, it is also seen to be done, to quote the poet Terpander. But then—” Lysander stood up. Stretched. Rubbed the stiffness out of the back of his neck. “Terpander was an inexhaustible composer of drinking songs, who died choking on a fig during a musical performance.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying it’s not a hunting net. It’s a bird snare. If you look closely, you’ll see the mesh is finer than the fishing net in which you currently catch your flying babies, yet strong.” He didn’t even pause. “It will dramatically reduce the time you spend on maintenance.”

“You’re — not arresting me?”

“Whilst a boy with a twisted leg might not make a good warrior, Iliona, I’m sure he can weave a fine cloak or engrave a good seal.” He leaned over the desk and poured himself a goblet of wine from the bowl. “The same way that not every man can be a cold-blooded killing machine. Some need to break free.”

Iliona’s legs were so weak with relief that she had to sit down. “Helping deserters is treachery in the eyes of the law.”

“The law can’t afford to have men on the front line who cannot be relied on.” He grinned. “And on a more personal level, the law prefers devoting its precious time and resources to rooting out real traitors, rather than track down weaklings who will only let their country down in battle.” He refilled his goblet. “Of course, that’s only my opinion, and I would prefer you didn’t bandy it around.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said, and for heaven’s sake, was she actually laughing?

Iliona opened the door and lifted her face to the constellations. The Lion, the Crab, and the Heavenly Twins. Far above the mulberries and vines, the paddocks and the barley fields, Night watched the High Priestess in the doorway. Guided by the stars and aided by the Fates, who measured, spun, and cut the thread of life, Night had long since dried the tears of the bereaved and wrapped them in the softness of her arms. Having called on her children, Pain, Misery, Nemesis, and Derision, to plague Tibios the acolyte, she was now ready to pass the baton of responsibility to her good friend, the Dawn.

And when the sun rose over the jagged peaks of Mount Parnon, some still capped with snow, Iliona smelled the scent of daisies, roses, and, of course, white lilies. This time, their perfume was sweet.

Copyright © 2012 by Marilyn Todd

Beauty

by Rubem Fonseca

Passport to Crime

EQMM has published several short stories by Rubem Fonseca over the years. As we have noted on past occasions, the author is one of Brazil’s best-known literary figures, a writer whose work is considered groundbreaking for its gritty and realistic depiction of life in the cities of his native country. What we have not mentioned before is that the author was once a policeman in Rio de Janeiro, where he rose to the rank of police commissioner.

* * * *

Translated from the Portuguese by Clifford E. Landers

Then Elza told me: “When I see myself in the mirror I feel like dying. I look at photographs of when I was twenty, you remember me when I was twenty, don’t you? And I think, how did this happen? I forget that, like someone said, time is the worst poison of all. I should have died when I was twenty, it doesn’t matter how, run over, murdered, a brick falling on my head. If I’d known I was going to end up like this, look at me, just look at me, go ahead and look at me, if I’d known I was going to end up like this, I would’ve killed myself. But would it do any good? Do you believe in the soul?”

“Soul?”

“Anima, in Latin. In theology, the incorporeal, nonmaterial, invisible substance created by God in his image; the source and engine of every human act.”

“Of course.”

“And the soul also ages, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t know. If there’s life after death, it’s a noncorporeal existence...”

“I read in a book by a philosopher that the soul ages too.”

“Ages?”

“Yes. But I don’t know what he meant by that. When I saw myself in the mirror I thought, When I die is my soul going to have this decadent, horrible look?”

“If the soul has a noncorporeal existence—” I began to say, but Elza interrupted, crying convulsively, saying between sobs, “I should have killed myself when I was twenty, when I was twenty...”

I remembered her at twenty. A beautiful woman. Now, sitting with me at the bar, was an ugly, fat woman, aged and depressed. Yes, Elza should have killed herself, or else someone should have had the kindness to do it for her, an unequaled gesture of generosity and nobility.

I went home and got two slices of moldy bread from the refrigerator and placed them in a small toaster oven, planning to make a sandwich. But then I realized I didn’t have anything to put between the slices of toast. Go out and buy something at the corner supermarket? I didn’t feel like eating; those slices of toasted bread were enough. I wanted to think. A human being’s beauty is a joy that’s short-lived; its enchantment and quality don’t increase, they disappear. Elza was right: For a woman as beautiful as she was at twenty, old age is worse than death.

Elza is my patient. I’m a doctor, a general practitioner. Before getting my medical degree I studied chemistry, but I changed majors a year before graduating. I wanted a profession in which I could help people, so I chose medicine. If patients call me late at night to complain about a problem, I respond completely willingly and if necessary go to their home. But for a long time now I’ve been contemplating a gesture of generosity, a truly transcendental kindness, something sublime never before achieved. I lie awake nights thinking about it. I needed to show my generosity in a different way, not merely by attending to people who can’t pay for the consultation, or by giving alms, but by something quite different... uniquely sublime.

I live alone and when I leave the office I go straight home. For dinner I have some soup that the maid leaves for me. I like being alone; by the time I arrive, the maid has already been gone for a long time, and when I leave early for the office she hasn’t gotten in yet. I can’t even recall what she looks like, don’t know if she’s white, black, or biracial, or Chinese, or a dwarf. I do know I pay her a good salary and make no demands.

Now I’m at home, thinking. What if Elza is right and the soul also ages? It’s better to die young. I remembered my nieces. They’re three very pretty young women. Lisete, eighteen years old. Norma, the same age, and Sabrina, nineteen. It would be better for them to die while they’re still beautiful. And I could help them. Yes, I could.

I thought about what poison to use. I’m not going to use guns or knives, poison is the best option. I first thought about strychnine, a very quickly absorbed drug. As soon as it enters the bloodstream, strychnine immediately affects the central nervous system. The problem is that it causes convulsions, spasms, and the facial distortion known as risus sardonicus. Cyanide? Cyanide blocks the blood’s oxygenation ability, paralyzing the respiratory center in the brain and provoking a rapid loss of consciousness. The problem is that cyanide also causes convulsions and unpleasant symptoms like dilation of the pupils. So I also ruled out cyanide. Poisoning by bacteria? But it would have to be typhoid, anthrax, diphtheria, the difficulty of which would be the inoculation. I know there was a murderer who used bacteria in a nasal spray, but the victim was his wife. It’s easy to get the woman we live with to use a nasal spray. Bacteria were also ruled out. Arsenic? How was it I only now thought of a poison known since antiquity, much used in Imperial Rome, the poison the Borgias used in the Renaissance? The problem is that it produces vomiting and diarrhea in the victim, something quite unseemly. So I ruled out arsenic. Aconite? Aconite is a vegetable alkaloid obtained from the root and purple leaves of the aconitum, a genre of poisonous plants of the ranunculus family, found in temperate regions. Aconite can be introduced through the skin and is highly toxic. It causes nausea and vomiting, another poison with unpleasant side effects.

How is it I know about so many poisons? Don’t forget, I studied chemistry and I practice medicine.

There’s nothing better for killing a person than a strong dose of some narcotic. But how to administer it?

Then I remembered ricin, a toxic alkaloid extracted from the seeds and leaves of the castor oil bean. In the right dose, a needle prick with a small portion of the substance is enough for the victim to present symptoms of a cold the following day and quickly succumb. But I needed a good lab with a high-temperature oven, as well as a specialist, a chemist with knowledge of advanced technology.

I had such a person, a friend of mine by the name of Gustavo. Perhaps the most sophisticated chemist in the country. I looked him up and told him what I needed.

“But it’s illegal to manufacture that substance,” Gustavo said. “I could go to jail, or lose my license.”

“I’ll pay anything you want.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“An experiment,” I said. “Afterwards, when you give me the material, I’ll tell you everything.”

Gustavo took a month to prepare the ricin.

It was a weekend when I arrived at his laboratory. Luck was on my side.

The first thing Gustavo told me was how much money he wanted. An absurd sum. I gave him a check for that amount.

“Here it is,” he told me, handing me a box inside which were small ampoules and a hypodermic needle. “One light scratch from the needle and the person will die within twenty-four hours. And no one will ever discover the cause.”

I took the needle, inserted it into one of the ampoules and, when Gustavo was distracted, stuck his arm with it. He was startled. I pulled from my pocket the .45 I’d brought with me and hit him over the head, hard, causing him to lose consciousness. Then I tied and gagged him with duct tape. I took my check and Gustavo’s wallet, along with a few objects, so that when his helpers showed up on Monday they would suspect robbery.

I returned home radiant. I was going to be able to exercise generosity in its sublime fullness, which would make me into a different person.

The papers carried news of Gustavo’s death, saying that he had been robbed. The coroner said he had probably died of heart failure after being tied and gagged with duct table.

Lisete came to my office. She’s extremely careful about her health and has periodic, unnecessary examinations. I think she’s a bit of a hypochondriac.

I imagine her aged, a wrinkled, ugly old woman, senile. Every woman nowadays is going to live long years until turning into a repugnant dotard. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Without her noticing, that’s how light the needle prick was, I inoculated her with ricin.

“You’re in excellent health, Lisete. You don’t need any kind of examination.”

“Not even a blood test?” she asked.

“Not even a blood test. You can go home with your mind at ease.”

The next day, in the morning, they called to say that Lisete had passed away in her sleep.

“But she was here yesterday. Her health was perfect,” I said, concealing my exaltation. “I’m going to stop by her house.”

I hung up the phone. My delight, my joy, my happiness at having done good was so great that I began to cry. But I quickly regained my composure. I had to plan my actions very carefully. Norma would have to be benefitted later; two of my nieces dying mysteriously could create suspicion. I would have to choose the places where I would act. And also choose other beautiful young women. There are so many, the poor things.

I had to plan, plan, plan. Doing good is harder and more laborious than doing evil.

Copyright © 2012 by Rubem Fonseca; translation Copyright © 2012 by Clifford E. Landers

The Closet

by Jenny Milchman

Department of First Stories

This is New Jersey suspense writer Jenny Milchman’s first paid professional publication, but it will be quickly followed up (in February of 2013) by the release of her debut novel, Cover of Snow (Ballantine). The author currently serves as chair of the International Thriller Writers’ Debut Authors Program, and she is also the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, which was celebrated, in 2011, in more than 350 bookstores in all 50 U.S. states and four foreign countries.

* * * *

It seemed to be darkest in the closet at midday. Ellie didn’t know why. Maybe because of how light it was outside, noonday sun glaring, just before she got locked in. The floor of the closet was carpeted, and the door sill shushed against it. Not even one crack of light could enter.

Ellie hated the dark more than anything else. More than the mixed-up jumble of hidden things her mom threw in here, everything that didn’t have a place anywhere else. More than the smell, which reminded her of her grandmother. Or the feel of the hot, wooly coats that sometimes brushed against her. The worst was the pure, unblinking dark.

“David!” she screamed. “Lemme out!”

She could scream until her throat was raw, and had. Till she coughed blood, and couldn’t make one sound more. It didn’t matter. David never let her out till he was ready.

In the bright, safe rest of the house, he was wrestling with his best friend. A loud boy who lived next door, bigger than David. She never heard David make a single grunt when they wrestled, though. He was silent, action only, whipping his body around, freeing himself from an arm or a chest, before flipping Brad onto the ground and pinning him there. Ellie had seen him do it, his eyes both fiery and satisfied, as he lay heaving on top of Brad. It was after David caught Ellie watching that he started locking her in the closet for real.

Turning the latch. Leaving her there for hours at a time. Ellie didn’t have a watch — and she couldn’t have seen it in the dark anyway — but she knew by how low the sun was in the sky when he finally let her out.

When she was very young, as little as five, it hadn’t gone on for as long, and David had stayed close by, keeping watch outside the door. That was three years ago, and their mom didn’t leave them alone in the house yet. All Ellie had to do was start screaming — and she began screaming the second she went in there anyway, so horrible were the back reaches of that closet — and her mom would come and get her out.

“David!” she’d exclaim. “Why was your little sister in the closet?”

Ellie would be hidden in the folds of her mother’s skirt, tears pouring soundlessly out of her. The dark still clutched at her throat, like a glove.

“I dunno,” he always muttered. “We were playing hide-n’-go-seek!” Or sardines. Or Jack and the Beanstalk. It was never true, any of it. David didn’t play games with Ellie.

“Not in the closet,” their mom would reply briskly. “I don’t know what all is in there now. And it could scare her. You know Ellie only stopped having nightmares last year.”

Actually, Ellie hadn’t stopped having them. She’d just stopped calling for her mother after one. She could remember the latest now, some kind of huge winged animal — not a bird — pressing down on her. She woke up smothered, fighting her blankets.

“Okay,” David would say, every time, head hanging. “I’ll tell her to play somewhere else.”

“Don’t look so upset,” their mother replied, chucking David under the chin as she began to walk out. “Little girls do all sorts of silly things. That’s why you have to be the big brother.”

David would look up at their mom, giving her that sunny grin that always made her take a step back and, whatever she might be doing — and their mom was always doing something — stop and smile back.

“Go on, let her out. I can’t stand that noise anymore.”

It was Brad’s voice. Ellie hadn’t realized she’d been screaming, but she must’ve been because her throat was doing that dead thing again. If she tried now, no sound would come out.

Then her brother spoke.

“No,” David said. “This time she isn’t getting out.”

Ellie never moved when she was in the closet. Not an inch. She sat in exactly one spot, the carpet like burrs under her palms.

She didn’t know what she’d find if she moved.

Or, what would find her.

Her mom had lived in this house forever — before David had been born and their dad had left even — and she’d always shoved everything they didn’t need anymore in the closet. On the shelf high above Ellie, boxes and clumped-up things threatened to topple down, which was why she always ducked, trying to protect her head, so that when she was finally let out, her neck would ache for hours.

“Why are you holding your head like that, Elizabeth?” her mom once asked.

“Because David—” Ellie had begun.

“David what?” her mother replied, in a patient, jokey tone, ready to smile at Ellie’s response. But her gaze had already lit on her son, and Ellie knew if she spoke now, her mother wouldn’t even hear.

Behind her in the closet loomed shapes Ellie couldn’t see so much as feel. Ellie never even knew if her eyes were open or shut unless she reached up and felt the lids. The darkness was so solid it filled up her mouth, like dirt.

Once something had roared in the closet, a loud, blustery roar that emitted an actual gust of wind. Ellie had screamed and catapulted herself forward into the door so hard she needed stitches. She didn’t get them — her mom was a nurse and did up the cut on her forehead with a butterfly — but Ellie figured that really hadn’t been enough from the way the cut still seeped for days afterwards.

It turned out that Ellie had fallen — there were times she dozed off while in the closet, which astonished her, but her mind did do this funny splintering thing, stopping only after she’d jerked to with a start — into the Dustbuster. David had hauled her out that time — there was a crack in the door he’d taken pains to repair — laughing at her.

“Scared of a vacuum cleaner,” he’d scoffed.

The Dustbuster was just one of the things that caused Ellie to stay stock still now until her imprisonment was over. The thought of that roar, the feel of its hot, dusty breath on her again made her shudder. But this time David had said it would never be over. He wasn’t going to let her out. Ellie didn’t think she could stay in the dark for much longer. It felt like it already had been hours — long past the longest sentence he’d ever inflicted upon her — and everything outside the closet was quiet. No Brad thumping and huffing, no final thud signaling David’s victory. If Ellie started to scream again, would they even hear her? Her throat was still too raw to produce much of a sound anyway. Ellie opened her mouth and tested it, feeling panic when only a dry whisper came out.

Terror-stricken, Ellie suddenly scampered forward, carpet rasping under her fists. She got onto her knees and began scrabbling around for the closet door, finding the softer streak of putty right at forehead height where she’d hit it that time, and which her mom never detected under the new layer of paint David had added.

She began beating with her fists. She could make noise with her hands even if her voice was dead — maybe she’d be able to break through the patched spot and at least let in a saving bolt of light. Even if David really wouldn’t let her out, even if she was trapped in here forever, died in here, she could stand that if she could just have a little light—

The soft spot in the door didn’t give, but a piece broke off and punctured the tender skin on her wrist.

Ellie let out a soundless scream. She looked instantly away, unwilling to see whatever could be making her wrist hurt this much. Her whole arm was hot. But Ellie couldn’t see even if she had wanted to; she just knew something was in there that didn’t belong. Shit. A curse word that she sometimes heard David say, but which she’d never dared use herself, erupted in her mind. She forced her other hand down to try and find whatever was sticking out of her skin.

Her hand came to a stop a good three inches above her wrist. In school two years ago they’d done measurement, discovered why a ruler was better than a hand span for figuring out how big things were. This piece of wood had to be about three inches long.

Ellie was going to have to get it out.

Yank it out, then quick press the wound against her jeans, in hopes of making the blood stop. She knew that from her mom. You couldn’t bleed for very long or you died.

She didn’t want to die in the dark.

Ellie let her good hand float above the dagger of wood. Somewhere, in some deep invisible part of her, she knew what it was going to feel like when she touched that stick that had no business being inside her body.

It was even worse than she feared. Her voice returned enough to allow a low, weak moan when her fingers finally touched the tip of the splinter.

“I can’t,” she whimpered.

Her mother’s voice floated into her consciousness. Can’t what, Elizabeth? she asked, sharing a smile with David.

Ellie’s fingers clenched, and she pulled the piece of wood straight up.

It seemed to take forever to leave her body. She felt it as it did, a long, slow sucking, then release. Blood spurted out, and she crushed her wrist against her thigh.

Then she heard voices.

Her brother was coming back.

David’s and Brad’s rooms faced each other across the narrow slit of lawn between their houses. Sometimes at night they played this spotlight game, where one person left his light on and the other person turned his off. Whoever’s light was off could see everything that went on in the other person’s room. Ellie had never dared look herself, but she’d see David there a lot, humped beneath his windowsill like a turtle, peeking in at Brad.

They were best friends. She wished she had a best friend who lived close by. She wished she had a best friend period.

“What happened?” Brad said now.

“Whaddya mean, what happened?” David replied in his lazy voice, the one their mom said sounded exactly like their dad’s.

“She got quiet.”

“Yeah,” David said. “She does that.”

Ellie could make out sounds as the boys arranged themselves, draping their bodies over furniture, kicking stuff out of the way. The bleep as someone turned on his DS.

“You sure she’s still in there?” Brad said. And then he laughed, a funny laugh. It took Ellie a minute to figure out why the laugh sounded funny, and in that time the dark didn’t bother her quite so much. It was funny because Brad sounded nervous.

“Shut up,” David said. “I’m gonna finish this level.”

Ellie twisted to look behind her. She felt the movement in her wrist, and bit back a yowl. Her voice had come back.

The dark was so thick back there, it pressed against her. No telling what might be in it. If she scooted backwards, Ellie had the very real feeling that she might disappear, simply fall off into the place that was left when you weren’t in this one anymore, and keep falling forever.

Her chest heaved up and down in little hitches like when she’d been crying for a long time, pushing small sighs out of her.

She made herself stop breathing so hard. Her voice was back; now she could make noise. And for some reason, Ellie didn’t want to make any noise.

All the pounding on the door she’d done earlier had disturbed things in the closet. Things that were piled up on the shelf had shifted, and Ellie suddenly realized that something was about to fall.

She’d taken gymnastics once. It was during one of the times their dad had come back for a while. She barely remembered it now, just that she’d liked it, especially the tumbling on the slick red floor mats. Despite her policy of not moving in the closet, she tucked her head down and rolled just as something heavy and cold whistled past her and fell onto the carpet, making a heavy, muffled thunk.

“What was that?” Brad’s voice again.

The hole in Ellie’s wrist had started bleeding when she moved, but it was only a trickle.

Ellie wasn’t able to see what had fallen right beside her, almost on top of her — she’d felt its breath as it went past.

“Shut up,” David said. “I almost got this.”

“Are you really going to keep her locked up in there?”

A second or two went by. “Who?”

“You know, your sister.”

Ellie snaked out the arm that wasn’t bleeding. She let her fingers feel around in the darkness, like the tentacles of some never-seen bug. They touched metal. Cold, round, long metal, with a little chain at the top. It was a lamp.

Ellie could remember this lamp; it had sat on the table next to their mother’s bed. If she tiptoed down to her mom’s room in the middle of the night, to ask for a drink of water or an extra blanket on the bed, her mom would reach a sleepy hand up and pull the chain, and light would spill over her face, her half-closed eyes.

It was so quiet now in the closet that Ellie heard the DS as it shut down.

“Whadda you care?” David asked.

“You can’t just leave her in there.”

“Whadda you care?” David said again.

There was some muffled moving around. Then the DS started up again.

Brad had it now; Ellie could tell the difference at once because Brad chortled and crowed whenever he scored points, while David was as silent as he played as he was when he did everything else.

“I care,” Brad said after a few minutes, “ ’cause I got a sister myself.”

“So?” David said.

“And my mom sometimes makes me babysit her and she’s only four and she’s a real pain. She always wants something to eat, and she always asks me to play with her.”

“I said, so?” A pause. “Lemme have it.”

“Not yet, hold on.” The bleep of the stupid game. “So — you’ve given me a great idea.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And whadda you think is gonna happen if you never let your sister out? Your mom’s gonna find out and you’ll get in trouble. People’ll look for her. Everyone will find out. Right? You know?” Some more bleeps. “I got it! Oh yeah, I never got to this level before.”

Ellie knew what would happen now. David would reach for the game. He wouldn’t say anything, there’d be no noise whatsoever except for the sounds the DS made, and then David would finish Brad’s level, and maybe the one after that.

It gave her a few minutes.

Ellie’s fingers squeezed the body of the lamp. The metal grew slippery in her grasp, and she wiped blood off blindly.

You got the splinter out, a small voice said. It wasn’t her mom’s anymore. You can do this too.

Faintly, Ellie could make out Brad’s voice, wheedling, badgering. Finally David muttered, “Of course I’m gonna let her out, dumb-ass. Soon as I finish this level.”

For the first time since she’d been getting locked in the closet, Ellie pushed herself backwards, into the swallowing blackness. On her bottom, still holding onto the lamp.

When the door finally opened, Ellie had to slam her eyes shut against the sudden explosion of light. She wriggled back a little more, behind the dangling coats, the carpet muffling any sound she might’ve made.

“Where is she?” Brad.

A pause.

“Holy crap, I told you she wasn’t in here anymore.”

“Shut up.”

Silence then, only silence and darkness back there in the depths, despite the light from the door. Ellie had gotten herself in pretty deep. The closet was even bigger than she’d imagined.

“Told you,” Brad said again.

“Shut up, of course she’s in here,” David said. “She can’t get out, I locked the door.”

“Yeah?” Brad said. There was that funny sound in his voice again. “Well, don’t let it lock on us.”

Ellie’s eyes had adjusted by now, and she could make out David, twisting around, feeling for the knob on the outside of the closet door. She could hear the tiny click the lock made as it turned from down to horizontal.

“There,” he said. “Now it can’t lock.”

But Brad took a step backwards into the room anyway.

“You better go in,” he said. “If she really can’t have gotten out, she’s gotta be in there.”

“Ding, ding, ding,” David muttered. “We got ourselves an Einstein.”

Ellie bought herself another inch of space.

“Ellie.” David’s voice was as rough as a strap. “Get out here.”

She cringed in the darkness. She held onto the lamp like she used to hold onto her mother’s skirt.

“Go on,” Brad said again. He sounded very far away. “You scared?”

“Who’s the one standing out there?” David replied. And then he entered the closet.

Ellie lifted the lamp into the air. She was surprised at how heavy it was.

“Ellie,” David said, louder than she’d ever heard him. “You better get out here or you’re not gonna like what happens.”

Ellie forced herself not to say a word, not to let out a single cry.

“It’ll be worse than the closet, that’s for sure.”

Fear sliced through her, and after that everything happened very fast. David walked a few more paces in, close enough for Ellie to hear the rasp of his jeans, to smell his breath, sour from whatever he’d been eating. She’d had nothing to eat since lunchtime at school.

He bumped against something — a carton that had once held an appliance — and ducked to shove it out of his way.

Ellie brought the lamp back, up over her shoulder, sure that David would detect the motion and grab it out of her hands.

But he didn’t seem to see a thing.

“Okay, that’s it,” David said. “If you’re really not in here, I’m going out. Brad and I’ll go over to his house. And Ellie?”

A pause, while Ellie fought not to jump up, tell David she was right here, fall on top of him, and give him the lamp.

“Mom’s not coming home tonight.” And he started to turn.

Ellie brought the lamp down with a hysterical screech. She didn’t know where on David’s body the lamp hit him, she only knew that it did. She could feel the solid weight of metal slamming against something, making the lamp vibrate so hard she felt it in her teeth.

And she heard David — who seldom raised his voice above a whisper, not even when their dad had walked out for the last time, telling David it was all his fault — scream.

Ellie raced out of the closet, stepping on some part of her brother so that she almost tripped, then righting herself and pushing past Brad, who was still standing by the couch, staring stupidly in her direction.

She ran up to her room and contemplated hiding in her closet. She did get down under her bed for a minute or two. But no one came upstairs, and Ellie crawled out. For a while she just stood there, listening for noises down below, but not hearing much.

It was getting dark; it must be late. This really had been the longest time ever. David had kept her locked up until almost dinner. Their mom was going to be mad that the meal wasn’t on the table, wasn’t even near to being prepared.

Finally the front door opened and closed; then there was quiet again.

“Elizabeth!” her mother called.

Ellie went downstairs, heart thudding.

Their mother was crouched before David, who was sitting on a kitchen chair, cradling his arm. Their mom’s gaze flew up to Ellie.

“I have to go back to the hospital,” she said, an unsteady stitch in her voice. “I’m taking David over.”

Ellie waited to be accused.

“You’d better get your coat,” their mother went on.

“Why?” Ellie asked. She didn’t dare look at her brother.

“Well, you can’t stay alone,” their mom said, still squatting on the floor. David’s long legs were splayed out around her.

“No,” Ellie replied, finally meeting David’s gaze. “I mean, why? What happened?”

She looked out at the living room. It had been cleaned up. The closet door was shut.

“Your brother was wrestling,” their mother said, standing up. “With Brad after school.” She gave a short, hard jerk of her head. “I think he broke his arm.”

David was as silent as ever while the doctor poked and prodded his arm, positioned it for X-rays, then set it. There were no chairs in the tiny, curtained-off space, so Ellie had to sit on the waxy tile floor, staring at a streak that might’ve been blood.

“Now will you learn?” their mother said as she helped David off the bed. “You’re supposed to be watching your sister anyway. No roughhousing.” She glanced back at the doctor and gave him a smile that flushed her cheeks. “Thanks, Ron.”

The next day after school, Ellie waited for David to exact his revenge. But he never came near her. It was hard for him to write — the arm Ellie had broken was his right one — and he seemed to labor over his homework, muffling grunts of frustration, bright green cast lying uselessly in his lap.

Ellie took it upon herself to prepare dinner. That was usually David’s job — he often did it while she was in the closet; she’d strain to hear the noises that meant at least one of these seconds, minutes, hours, their mother would be returning home — but she could make macaroni and cheese from a box. She could tear up lettuce.

There was still time left before their mother was due back, and Ellie wanted to stay far away from David. Eventually he’d finish struggling with his homework, or else give it a herky-jerky, left-handed throw aside. Then there’d be nothing left for him to do.

She trudged upstairs.

It was getting dark. The light in David’s room was off, but across the strip of lawn, Brad’s had been turned on. Ellie wondered why he hadn’t come over today. She turned and looked back over her shoulder, making sure David wasn’t on his way up to play spy with his best friend. But all was quiet downstairs.

Ellie took a step into David’s room.

His blanket was in a twist, hanging off the bed. The clothes he’d tried on earlier — two shirts whose sleeves he couldn’t get over his cast — lay on the floor. Some new games were scattered about too. Ellie began to step over them. But when her foot came down on one, Ellie stepped a little harder, listening for the crack.

Still quiet downstairs. No one was behind her.

She’d traveled all the way across the room by now.

She ducked down like David did, peeking through the window.

It was as clear as watching a movie on their dad’s HDTV. Ellie had only been there once — and David never at all — but she had been amazed at how new and shiny their dad’s apartment was. It was as if he’d stripped off the old, gray life he’d shared here with Ellie and David and their mom. Like a papery, outgrown skin.

Brad was walking around in his room, his steps big and angry. Even from here, Ellie could tell he was making a lot of noise. His mouth kept opening and closing. He threw a bunch of wadded-up clothes, or maybe a sheet, onto the floor. Then he ducked out of his room to grab something.

It was a little girl.

Ellie saw her swinging ponytail as Brad yanked her around.

He pulled open the door to his bedroom closet and shoved the little girl inside. Ellie watched as Brad took a key off his dresser and twisted it in the old- fashioned lock.

He stomped out of the room, disappearing from view.

Ellie thought she could see the door bulge in and out as it was pounded, but maybe she was imagining that.

She felt as if she were in a trance. Once somebody — called a hypno-something — had visited their school for a special assembly. He’d made the kids come up on the stage and do all sorts of things, bark like dogs, think their skin had turned purple. Even a couple of teachers had gone up. All the kids thought it was really funny, but Ellie had found it creepy.

She felt like that now. Like somebody besides herself was making her do things.

She tiptoed down the stairs, even more intent than before on making sure David didn’t hear her.

She was almost to the front door, taking the knob in her hand and beginning to nudge it around slowly, soundlessly, when something struck her.

She’d gotten lucky in the closet the last time. Funny to think of it that way, but she had. If the lamp hadn’t fallen, after years and years of her praying nothing would, she wouldn’t have been able to break David’s arm. And not every closet had a lamp in it.

It didn’t have to be a lamp, she realized. The one she’d used was too heavy to carry next-door anyway.

She stood a minute, thinking. Her gaze roamed around the house, lighting on different objects.

She forced herself to hurry, to decide. Brad’s little sister — Ellie didn’t even know her name; her mom had never tried very hard to get to know their neighbors — was in the closet right now. And Ellie knew what she was feeling, what she must be doing. She hoped the little girl hadn’t hurt her hands too badly yet. Or her head.

Then she thought of something good.

She raced back upstairs — saying sorry in her head for the extra seconds; promising the little girl it would be worth it — and swerved into David’s room again. She paused.

“David!” she called. Wanting, needing to know where he was right now.

It was stupid, though. David would never shout back.

She ran across his room and pulled open the third dresser drawer. The box was behind a stack of T-shirts, and the secret drawer was in the bottom, opened by a series of taps.

Easy.

When she wasn’t in the closet, she was usually watching David.

The game she had stepped on in David’s room — broken, you broke it, said the new voice — gave her an idea. Ellie dashed outside and ran across the two front lawns, pants pocket heavy with the thing she had taken. She pounded on Brad’s front door.

“David says you have his X-Men Three!” she shouted breathlessly as soon as Brad opened it.

“What? I do not,” Brad replied. He was giving her a look like his laugh had been, funny, shaky.

“You do too!” she shrieked hysterically. “David says so! Go look!”

Still with the same look, Brad began to back away, and Ellie watched him walk to some distant part of the house.

“It’s not here!” he called out loudly after a moment or two.

Ellie squinted. She couldn’t even see where Brad was calling from.

“Fine!” she shouted. “I’ll tell David but he won’t be happy!”

Brad would start to look again, she figured. At least give it one more try.

She stepped into the house, pushing the door shut loudly, so Brad would think she had really left. Then she tore upstairs.

The screams coming from the closet were so loud they hurt her ears. It was like running straight into a wall of sound. Ellie’s eyes teared, her head smarted.

She didn’t even have to use the map in her head of where Brad’s room must be — directly across from David’s — to locate the little girl. She flung herself around a corner into Brad’s room and ran straight for the dresser. It was tall, higher than any of the furniture in their own house. The key had to be somewhere on top, but Ellie couldn’t see it. She looked around wildly, knowing she’d never be able to hear Brad coming up over all this screaming. But her brother’s friend seemed as unbothered by it as David always was. Ellie stood on tiptoes, straining the backs of her legs till something felt ready to rip inside, and swiped her palm across the top.

The key fell off. It dropped beneath the dresser.

Heaving a grunt of pure frustration, which was lost beneath the little girl’s cries, Ellie dropped to her knees and looked down.

The key was out of reach.

Ellie stretched her fingers, feeling splinters from the underside of the wood break off and stab the skin on her hand, before she touched its jagged edge. She forced herself to go slowly, nudging the key out, so she wouldn’t lose it again. For a moment she paused to clap her hands over her ears, shutting out the sound of those awful screams. But she knew she couldn’t stay like this because she wouldn’t hear if Brad came upstairs, not even if he walked right up behind her.

On hands and knees, she swung around.

It didn’t seem possible, but the little girl had gotten even louder, the whole room shaking now. Ellie understood. She could remember pushing her own voice beyond limits she hadn’t known it had, stopping only when her tongue blocked her throat and she started to choke.

The key was in her hand.

Ellie stood up and fitted it into the lock on the closet door.

There wasn’t so much as a break in the little girl’s screaming before Ellie pulled the door shut again and dropped down beside her in the dark.

“Shhh!” Ellie hissed. “You have to stop screaming! Now!”

Unbelievably, the girl fell silent. She didn’t question Ellie’s presence, or why Ellie hadn’t let both of them out. All went quiet around them, two girls huddled in dark as complete as any Ellie had ever known, but somehow not as scary, as paralyzing as it had been only a day ago.

And then they heard footsteps coming into the room.

“Lily?” they heard Brad say.

Ellie located the jackknife in her pocket in the dark. She had to prod out its blade by feel, pushing the can opener back in when she ran her thumb across it and didn’t feel a sharp tip.

Beside her, the little girl’s breath heaved in and out, as if she were a small animal. Ellie couldn’t see anything, but she gave the little girl — Lily — a nod, hoping she could somehow sense it in the dark.

“Lily? You in there?” Brad said again.

They would be blinded when the door opened, Ellie knew that.

She raised the knife to what she hoped would be mid-section height on Brad, gauging it by feeling her own chest, then moving up several inches, and turning the tip so it faced out.

Footsteps strode across the room and the door was yanked open.

Ellie thrust forward with the sharp end of her blade.

She missed completely — Ellie could tell because the knife had sunk into nothing but air — but it didn’t matter. The second he knew who she was, and what she had done, Brad fell backwards onto the floor, like he did when David wrestled him, soft belly exposed.

Ellie crawled across the floor. The knife was still open; she was holding it out. She bent down over Brad and whispered into his hot, red ear. “If you ever put her in the closet again—”

“No—” Brad shook his head. He had started to cry. “No, okay, I won’t, I promise—”

Ellie jumped to her feet. She turned around and took one look at Lily. The little girl’s face was all smeary with tears and she’d bitten right through a spot on her lip. But she didn’t look scared anymore. Her eyes were big and shining as they gazed up at Ellie.

Ellie pocketed the knife, and ran.

They ate Ellie’s macaroni and cheese for dinner, and her mom said it was good.

David kept his eyes cast down, refusing to look at Ellie. He wouldn’t quit cradling his cast, which already looked grimy.

When their mother tried to coax him to speak, David’s voice reached a high-pitched, teetering note. “I said I don’t want to talk!”

The next day, David stayed home from school because he said his arm was hurting. Ellie figured he’d play his DS all day long. He’d gotten pretty good at it left-handed.

At recess, Ellie spotted a little boy in the grade below hers. He was sitting on a railroad tie at the edge of the playground, clenching his hand.

Ellie went over and sat down beside him. “How come you’re not playing?”

“I can’t play,” the little boy said. After a moment, he slowly opened his hand.

Ellie looked down and studied his palm. He seemed to be holding a fistful of rosebuds, small red blooms across the skin.

“What happened?” Ellie asked.

“My sister,” the little boy said. “She made me hold onto a whole bunch of rocks. Little tiny ones. Then she squeezed my hand as hard as she could.”

Ellie nodded.

“She likes to do medical speriments,” the boy went on. “Today I have to tell her if it hurts a lot or a little less. Like a seven or a two.”

Ellie nodded again.

After a while she asked, “Do you have a closet?”

Copyright © 2012 by Jenny Milchman

Mischief in Mesopotamia

by Dana Cameron

Dana Cameron has had an extraordinary string of successes with her short stories over the past couple of years, earning, most recently, the Agatha Award for her Anna Hoyt story “Disarming” (EQMM 6/11). Her previous Hoyt story, “Femme Sole,” received nominations for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. The Massachusetts author rejoins us with an entry in her Emma Fielding archeology series. The lastest novel in that series is the Anthony Award-winning Ashes and Bones.

* * * *

I sat across from a row of decapitated kings, gods, and heroes waiting for them to speak to me. I didn’t know a word of their language, and they’d been dead — their monuments erected, sanctified, and decaying — long before anyone speaking my language was born. Still, I waited, if not as patiently as they did.

In the end, it wasn’t the statues but my husband Brian who spoke first:

“Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown/ And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command/... and then something, something, something, then My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:/ Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Brian was standing on the stone platform next to me, in what I assumed was meant to be a dramatic, declamatory posture, feet apart, arms raised. Several of the other members of our tour started clapping, and he bowed, then sat down, carefully holding his new, heavy, and very expensive camera to his chest as he did so.

“Moved to poetry?” I said, a little surprised.

“Nah.” He shrugged, looking away, pretending disdain. “My tenth-grade English teacher always said memorizing poetry would be useful in later life. Now I can finally check it off the list.” He turned back, smiling, and nudged my shoulder with his. “Worth the climb, huh?”

“Amazing.”

We’d hiked the half-mile from the parking lot up to near the summit of Mount Nemrut. Two thousand meters above sea level is a lot when you live about a mile from the ocean, and the heat, exertion, and altitude had made the trek surprisingly tiring, given all the time we’d spent training at the dojo together. But when we reached the top, and saw the line of stone statues, their massive heads removed and placed in a row in front of them in an act of genuine iconoclasm, it was worth it. In fact, I realized the effort of climbing was probably something intended by the original builders, to leave the viewer of the tomb site breathless and stunned on arrival. After thirty minutes of huffing and puffing with your head down, trying not to slip on loose, sharp stones or the weeds growing around smoothed stone steps, sweating in the hundred-degree heat and avoiding evil-minded donkeys with no objection to kicking, the first view of the Eastern Terrace was an incredible moment. Positively sublime.

“Who’s that, Ozymandias?” Randy Ashmore asked. His pink face was almost beet-colored from the hike; his khaki hat was so large, it made him look like a mushroom with a bulbous nose and small eyes. “Was Ozymandias the king who built this?”

Lale Mehmet, our Turkish guide, had just finished explaining that the tomb and statues had been erected by Antiochus I in 62 BCE. I bit my tongue, refusing to take the bait Randy had proffered. The didactic habits of a professor were not easily put aside, but sometimes I learned faster than others.

Randy pushed past to get a better look. He stepped on Jack Boyle’s foot.

“Oww!” Jack limped a few steps. “No, it’s another name for Ramses II, Nineteenth Dynasty in Egypt. A whole other time and place, my friend.”

“My friend” sounded more like “you jerk.”

“Well, you’d think whoever it was would have put a toilet up here too. I’m on the run with the Tehran trots.”

Once, I had, out of that professorial habit, pointed out that Tehran was in Iran, while we were in southeast Turkey. Undismayed by mere fact, Randy had made a series of attempts to find an alliterative expression that combined the local place and his illness. Now I just kept as far away from him as I could.

The transcendent moment was now officially over. “There’s one down at the base, Randy,” Lale, our guide, said hurriedly. “We’ll be stopping there on our way back, or you’re welcome to start down now—”

We all held our breath, hoping Randy would leave us to enjoy the rest of the site.

Remarkably, he nodded, and having borrowed a lira, which he would not pay back, he left, calling loudly for his wife Rose to follow.

“Best money I ever spent,” Jack said, putting his wallet away. He wiped the sweat from his face and ran his hand through his dark hair before he replaced his baseball cap. He was a Mets fan, so I, a member of Red Sox Nation, had no beef with him. “But I’m grateful to Randy.”

We were a very polite group. It was only now, on the tenth day of the tour, that we had started tentatively expressing our true opinions about each other, to selected comrades, very cautiously.

“Why on earth?” I whispered to Jack. “Grateful to Randy?”

“Because of the old saying — if you’re in a group and you look around and can’t find the dickhead, you must be it. Randy reassures me.”

I couldn’t smother a laugh, but when I caught Lale’s eye, I clammed up. Despite years of habit, I’d tried very hard not to answer questions asked by the other tourists, and tried to be respectful of the tour leader when she lectured. She smiled and continued her talk. No harm done.

As we carefully picked our way down the steep, scree-covered slope, the sun burning and glaring so the buff stone was nearly white, I asked, “How is Steve Osborne feeling? Has anyone seen him today?”

Randy hadn’t been the only one suffering from a change in water and diet.

Jack shrugged. “I heard he was definitely happier after he decided to stay at the hotel today. I think he’ll be okay by tomorrow. Shame he’s missing all this.” He held out a hand to indicate the vista, the brightly caparisoned donkeys, the sheer scale of it all.

“But he’s been on this tour before? I seem to recall he said so.”

“No, but he’d been on another tour with Lale, and they visited this region too. That’s why he wanted to come back. She was a good guide, he fell in love with the country.” He shrugged. “The country’s pretty enough, and the sites too, but the food!” He raised his fingers to his lips and kissed them. “That’s what brought me: cuisine.”

We walked over to the Western Terrace and viewed the rest of the statues, which seemed like a jumbled afterthought. When you’ve already carved a tomb out of a mountain, then covered it with a fifty-meter-high mound of buff-colored stone chips from sculpting a row of thirty-foot-tall sculptures, a collection of heads and reliefs lying around had to seem a bit of a letdown.

It was hotter than body temperature. I was covered in sweat and a brand of ancient dust I’d never encountered in New England. I pretended all I could smell was sunblock, baking rock chips, and camel and donkey dung, instead of me.

“So what do you think those big stone heads would go for?” Eugene Tollund asked me as we began our descent. “I mean, on the open market?” Eugene was the oldest member of our group, and I’d been impressed by his energy and enthusiasm. Eventually, however, I realized he seemed only to care about the monetary value of things, instead of their intellectual or artistic importance.

“I honestly have no idea. Probably a lot, because it would have to be on the black market. You couldn’t sell something like that legally.”

“I thought you said you were an archaeologist?” he said.

“I am.” I ignored the derisive tone of his words. “Doesn’t mean I know how much everything I dig up is worth. Mostly it’s small fragments of pottery and bone. I don’t do a lot of work studying the antiquities trade, so—”

But Eugene was already on to his next victim, posing questions no one knew the answers to, so he could prove his astuteness in asking.

An hour later, we were visiting the caves and inscriptions at a nearby site. It was on our way back down yet another steep slope that I saw Rose Ashmore, Randy’s wife, moving off the trail.

I held my breath. It wasn’t for me to say anything. I wasn’t her teacher, I wasn’t her mommy. But when she bent over, moved a rock aside, and picked something up, something that shone in the sunlight, I couldn’t not speak up.

“Um, Rose?”

She waved at me as she clambered up the hill. A few dark, fly-away curls blew in the warm wind, and she brushed them from her face. If her husband was like a short, stubby mushroom, she was more like a stalk of asparagus, thin, tall, awkward. “I’m fine.”

I tried to find a nice way to put it, then finally didn’t bother. “You found something? Picked it up?”

“No.” She shook her head, her brown eyes wide. She licked her lips.

She was lying.

“Well, I’m sure you know you should leave anything you see on the ground. These are protected sites.”

“Uh-huh.”

It was all I could do. I didn’t have any authority, just the obligation — and that self-imposed — of speaking up.

But maybe my seeing her had nudged her conscience, or she was afraid I’d tell on her, because I saw Rose huddled with our guide Lale at the next rest stop. I sidled up, quite unabashedly, to observe while sipping my tea. Eugene and Jack were nearby too; Eugene’s bald head was like a speckled brown egg and both he and Jack feigned inattention. But nothing goes with tea like scandal.

Harold Campbell was smoking one of his innumerable cigars, though politely away from the main part of the group. A perennial loner, for once he was interacting with someone else on the tour: I was surprised to notice he made two of the younger tour members, Nicole Powell and Tiffany More, laugh. He’d made his lighter disappear with a practiced and elegant flourish.

I turned back to the real drama. Lale’s lips were compressed almost to invisibility as she asked precisely where Rose had found the object. I knew Lale’s job could be endangered by something like this, and Rose might be in a great deal of trouble if the situation wasn’t handled exactly correctly.

It started to drizzle, and we all huddled under the rest stop’s shelter.

“The Storm God is upset now,” Eugene announced. We’d been learning the Storm God or Weather God was the chief god among the Hittites, a powerful king and warrior in control of the elements.

I winced. It was exactly the wrong thing to say, especially since we were all able to hear Lale rebuking Rose, however politely.

“It’s a good thing we are seeing Dr. Boran Saatchi today,” she said. “We’ll give it to him, with all the information you have about where you... found it. I don’t need to tell you this is very serious. I’m glad you spoke to me, though.”

She held out her hand, waiting.

Lale had been friendly and informative, all smiles the whole trip. Now her face was grave, and she was clearly angry, though suppressing it. Rose had the decency to look abashed as she handed over the object, which I could now see was a small white clay disc, the size of a quarter, with concentric ridges. It might have been a gaming piece. Whatever it was, it was culturally meaningful.

I got it, I really did. I understood that urge to want to hold onto the past, and I almost felt sympathy for Rose. But I was on vacation from solving problems, archaeological or criminal. I liked being done with work at the historical archaeology conference in Istanbul, I liked being away from my part-time consulting for the Massachusetts State Police. I liked not being an expert. Now Rose had reminded me of all that, and I couldn’t forgive her. As we scurried through the raindrops onto the bus, I was glad the situation was dealt with and out of my hands, but I was annoyed all the same.

“Okay, go ahead,” Brian whispered, as he sat down next to me. The bus was abuzz with what Rose had done. “I can see you’re about to burst.”

“On Mount Nemrut, there were signs in Turkish, English, French, and German, telling us not to climb on the mound behind the statues,” I whispered. “At every stop, Lale reminded us not to go off the paths or move away from the group. Hell, Brian, there were signs in the airport saying not to mess with the antiquities. Rose knew what she was doing.”

I looked away. “Why do people go on these tours, if they’re not going to respect the culture? I’m not even talking about the past. Randy only complains about the toilets, Rose is practically a kleptomaniac. Eugene is asleep when he’s not asking how expensive something is. Jack seems to think it’s just a moving buffet, and Harold, Harold never says anything to anyone, just stalks around like a great tall stick insect, puffing on his cigars and watching us like we’re acting in a play for him. What’s the point?”

“Lots of things. People travel for all sorts of reasons. It’s allowed.”

“Well — no. It shouldn’t be.” I felt better for having let off steam, but was still pouting.

“So only highly trained professionals and their spouses — who’ve been beaten into submission with interminable lectures — should be allowed to travel and see sights, maybe learn something? Even if it’s only that they like home more?”

The corners of my mouth twitched. “Yes. I’ve decided. Make it so.”

“How about if I buy you an ice cream at the next stop, instead?” We’d become addicted to the many varieties of gas-station freezer goodies we’d encountered during our long drives across the country.

“Fine. I may jam it up Rose’s butt, though.”

“Your call. Waste of a good ice cream, you ask me.”

A short drive took us out of the rain and back into the bright sun. The weather was just as variable as the landscape in Turkey, which could change two or three times a day, shifting from vast brown plains in the morning to rolling green hills with red soil in the afternoon. I found myself thinking one moment, “That plain looks like fields in the Midwest,” and the next, “Those cliffs remind me of Hawaii.” Every once in a while, we’d go through a small city that was a blend of modern shops, rows of tiny specialty stores, and covered-over marketplaces selling everything from pots and pans to prayer beads to cell phones. The clothing on the women changed too, as we headed north and west, and while I always saw plenty of them dressed in traditional baggy trousers, overshirts, and head scarves, as we neared the outskirts of Ankara, the capital, I saw fashions I couldn’t distinguish from home in New England.

We arrived at what I imagined would be the highlight of the day, on a par with the view at Mount Nemrut. If there’s anything in the world I love more than exploring sites, it’s going behind the scenes in a museum. Seeing things in their cases can be a treat, but getting to see them up close, with no Plexiglas separating you, is an extraordinary event.

We would be coming back to the museum tomorrow for a formal tour of the public collections, but Lale had studied with Dr. Saatchi and wanted to show off the prizes of the museum to us.

“Hey, Em. Calm down,” Brian said. “You look like you gotta pee.”

I realized I was bouncing around a little, and tried to chill out. My good mood lessened when I saw Lale take Dr. Saatchi aside and hand him the small object Rose had taken. He frowned and asked her several questions. He glanced at Rose, and then, after Lale said something else, glanced at me. I nodded. He continued with Lale in Turkish.

With a gesture that said the matter was over, he pocketed the clay disc. I was surprised when Lale led him over to me.

“Dr. Fielding, I am pleased to meet you. I used your paper on trade goods on early American sites to do something similar with trading centers in Asia Minor.”

A little shocked, I shook his hand. “I’m delighted it was useful to you.”

“Well, we have so many cultures, so much history in Turkey, we are happy to use whatever tools best give us a clear picture of the past.”

Brian nudged me; I raised one eyebrow and gave him a mock-serious frown. Yes, I was totally awesome; he shouldn’t ruin it by acting like this didn’t happen all the time. This was one situation where I didn’t mind bringing my profession into my vacation.

Lale explained that Dr. Saatchi would be showing us important artifacts from sites from all over Turkey, including finds from the Roman, Greek, Persian, and Hittite cultures. We’d be seeing things from as far back as the Assyrian and Babylonian cultures; southeastern Turkey, with the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, had been part of Mesopotamia two millennia BCE.

He unveiled a tray of tiny treasures in glass and stone and clay. Their colors ranged from shiny black to bone white, including pale pink, brown tiger-stripes, deep blue, spotted green, and blood red.

First was a group of cylinder and stamp seals; with their tiny images and symbols, they looked like beads no longer than my fingertip. Alongside them were the impressions made by them on soft clay, showing how the marks would have appeared on wax.

“I saw on the news that a lot of those kinds of things were stolen from the museum in Baghdad during the war,” Eugene said. “They were worth thousands and thousands of dollars.”

Leave it to Eugene, I thought. He was right, though; there would be a small fortune in just a handful of the objects before us.

Some of the other pieces were similar to the one Rose had just handed over, simple discs that could be used in any number of games. Another object was a reconstructed bracelet, the beads restrung into a rainbow interspersed with gold.

“It looks like yours, Tiff!” Nicole exclaimed.

Tiffany held out her necklace, purchased from one of the many vendors we encountered at all of the sites. Although she might have found a similar souvenir anywhere in the world — little glass beads were, after all, just little glass beads — she was pleased.

Even more spectacular were the metallic objects on the next tray: coins and jewelry in silver, gold, and bronze. And one very small piece was possibly the most valuable on the whole table. A tiny bronze figure of a stylized horse, possibly a votive offering to one of the many gods in Anatolia, which made up most of what is modern Turkey.

“Every object, no matter its monetary value,” Dr. Saatchi said, “has a story to tell us, about the people who owned it, where it came from, and how it got here. That history—”

A klaxon sounded at near-deafening levels. Randy started; his flailing hand knocked into Brian, who had been taking a close-up of one of the coins.

Artifacts scattered from the velvet-covered table. Everyone automatically bent to gather them.

“Fire alarm!” Lale called out. “Please do not touch anything! Follow me out of the room. Be careful not to step on anything!”

A few people set the artifacts on the tray and we filed out and hurried down the hall to the main entrance. Constitutionally unable to pass a vendor or shop without stopping, Randy paused at the displays of the museum store. He began to pick through the piles of loose beads.

“Please, we must leave the building, Randy.” Lale was remarkably polite, considering. “We will return shortly, and the shop will still be open.”

Another group of tourists, presumably doing a walking tour of the city, paused nearby us outside the museum, while their guide explained the history and importance of the artifacts inside. The fire-alarm racket made the guide have to speak up, and she apparently made a joke: The group looked around and laughed. I certainly hoped they’d be going in tomorrow, as it seemed rather silly for them only to view the outside of the building.

Lale, ever alert to maximize the good in any situation, saw a woman cooking in the front of a tiny storefront restaurant. After introducing herself, she spoke rapidly to her in Turkish, then gestured for us all to gather round as waiters handed us all glass cups of tea on saucers with tiny spoons and two pieces of lump sugar.

“Mrs. Kaya has offered to do a demonstration of Turkish cooking for us while we wait to return to the museum.”

The tour group outside the museum had apparently seen our tea and were pressing in. I frowned when someone pushed a little too hard.

Get your own Mrs. Kaya, I thought. She’s ours.

“Jack, Harold, if you would like to gather round?” Lale said.

I stepped over to let Jack in, as Mrs. Kaya spoke rapid-fire Turkish to Lale, who translated for us. The older woman nipped off small pieces of dough with her fingertips, stretching them out flat, then she made a well with a deft gesture of her thumb. She filled the dough with a small pinch of what looked like ground beef and herbs, pinching the sides closed at the top, making a dumpling no larger than my thumbnail.

“This is manti,” Lale explained. “Although Mrs. Kaya uses lamb, you can use ground beef, and after they’re boiled, you top them with fresh yogurt and browned butter and chili powder. It is one of my favorite dishes from childhood.”

She spoke again to Mrs. Kaya, who dusted off her hand and brushed Lale’s cheek in an affectionate, grandmotherly gesture. Mrs. Kaya continued working, but called to one of her assistants. Soon we were all given spoons and were sampling the finished project.

Across the little knot of our group, I saw Brian jotting down notes without taking his eyes off Mrs. Kaya’s movements. She’d moved on to rolling up seasoned rice in grape leaves, with a series of motions that were so fluid they could only have been acquired after years of practice. The finished product was thinner than I expected, no thicker than a pen or a marker, and perfectly wrapped.

Mrs. Kaya spoke. “If any of you would like to try to do this yourselves, you may now,” Lale translated. “This is an excellent opportunity to learn from a real home-style cook at work.”

Immediately, Brian, Tiffany, and Jack stepped forward. “This is what I’m talking about,” Jack said enthusiastically. “Never mind the old stuff, point me towards lunch.”

Each was given a pickled grape leaf and shown how to fold it around the rice. Brian got better with each try, and soon, about a half-dozen slender tubes were arranged by his plate. Mrs. Kaya pursed her lips and nodded once.

Tiffany kept giggling, posing for Nicole to take her picture. “Look, I’m doing something cultural!”

Jack’s efforts were more labored, but he proceeded gamely. He grabbed one of the misshapen rolls and popped it into his mouth, chewing exaggeratedly to general laughs.

“Well, traditionally we wait until they are steamed,” Lale said diplomatically.

At that moment, a guard from the museum came over and whispered something to Lale. Her smile vanished, and she inquired about something. I cursed my lack of Turkish beyond “hello,” “thank you,” and other tourist necessities.

“We must return to the museum.” She spoke to Mrs. Kaya, gave her a small gift of money for the demonstration, then guided us back.

The alarm was off now, but the staff was buzzing like bees in a kicked hive. We were still the only tourists around, and it was after official hours. Surely we wouldn’t be continuing now, when it was so late?

Lale waited for Harold to join us, and when Randy beat a path for the shop, she spoke sharply. “I’m afraid we must stay close together, Randy. I have some very disturbing news. There are some artifacts missing.”

“From the ones we were looking at? But none of us even touched them.”

But some of us had. I remembered the instinct to retrieve them myself. Several people had replaced the small, elusive objects on the cloth after we were told to leave.

“No, of course not. Dr. Saatchi is concerned that perhaps they might have accidentally gotten snagged on a sock or in a cuff, when the tray went flying. We would like to put your bags through the X-ray machine again, as we did when we came in. Just to be sure. And, if you wouldn’t mind turning out your pockets? I’m sure no one would take anything on purpose, but when everything went flying, it is possible...”

She ended lamely, and I knew she was only doing her job, which had just become a hundred times more difficult. Both her professional and personal reputation were at stake.

“Well, I’m not going to—” Rose said, gathering herself up for a long-winded refusal.

“I’ll go first,” I said quickly. If I could cut her protests off, maybe everyone else would fall into line, and we could get this sorted out. Or at least, remove ourselves from the equation.

I handed Lale my bag, which she handed to the guard, and it went through the X-ray. Then the guard went through the bag by hand, after I nodded permission. I emptied out my pockets onto the table, then pulled them out to show they were empty. To finish the point, I checked the bottoms of my hiking shoes, to make sure there was nothing caught in the treads. Nothing.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to sort the large pile of tissues, Purell bottles, Swiss Army knife, lira coins, sunglasses, phrase book, and camera back into the pockets of my shirt and trousers.

“Jeez,” someone muttered. “I’ve seen pool halls with fewer pockets.” There were a few nervous giggles. Good; anything to break up the tension.

Brian stepped up next, and I could have kissed him.

Jack went after him, shrugging. “I don’t like this,” he said. “But I’ve got nothing to hide.”

Although Eugene Tollund didn’t rebel, he followed, with poor grace. “Not what I paid so much money for,” he mumbled.

Rose was still talking up and down about police and rights and citizenship, when Randy finally said, “Rosie, just do it.”

She did, eventually, but still invoking the embassy and her cousin, the alderman, at home. Nicole and Tiffany followed, but reluctantly, exchanging meaningful glances.

No one had any of the missing artifacts.

“The Storm God’s gonna be totally pissed now,” Nicole whispered.

We went to our hotel that night tired, dusty, and bewildered. None of the missing artifacts — including the votive horse — had been recovered, and Lale had been on her cell phone almost nonstop. I was curious as to how she would handle the situation. I found myself going over to offer my help, when I felt an arm on my shoulder.

“It’s not your problem to solve,” Brian said. “And if there has been a theft, I’m sorry to say you’re as much a suspect as anyone here.”

“More,” Harold added suddenly. “You’re one of the few people who knows anything about this stuff.”

For his first time talking directly to me, it was a hell of a thing to say. I gave Harold a sour look.

He shrugged. “I’m just calling it like I see it.”

I nodded to Brian. “You’re right; this isn’t my problem to solve. Say, this is an American chain hotel, right? With an American-style bar? I could use an American-style whiskey.”

Brian and I sat up late, with a couple of drinks, which were hugely refreshing. We’d been careful to avoid the local water, and cold drinks, besides beer and the licorice-flavored raki, were rare. We were alone; Harold was on the other side of the bar, having refused our invitation to sit with us. He was handling his lighter like he was jonesing for a cigar, and eventually, he removed a metal tube from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and shook the cigar out. Nodding to us, he said goodnight.

Harold didn’t go to the elevators, though. He went outside. A brief flare of the lighter, and he vanished.

“Randy kept wandering over to the gift shop,” Brian said, when he noticed I couldn’t seem to focus on anything else with real attention. “I know he’s got this magpie-like compulsion, but it really was excessive today. If he did it, I wondered if he hadn’t stashed something over there.”

“Hiding the real thing among the souvenir beads and the imitation coins and seals?” I tilted my head. “It would make sense. If he took it.”

“He bumped up against my camera when the alarm went off,” Brian reminded me. “Maybe he was making a distraction, so his wife could snag a few things. We know she has a taste for unsupervised antiquities. Or perhaps she picked up that gaming disc intentionally, as a distraction? A way for their eyes to be on Lale and her talking to Dr. Saatchi while her husband did the work?”

I shrugged. “Seems too elaborate. And she couldn’t count on finding something at the sites we visited. There was nothing on her when they searched her. Of course, that doesn’t mean she or Randy couldn’t have done it.”

Brian thought a minute. “We all went outside. Maybe the thief stashed it somewhere outside the museum?”

That was a glum thought. “Okay, with objects so small, they could be hidden anywhere. Let’s rule that out for a minute. Was anyone missing during the food demonstration?”

“No. Well, Steve was at the hotel, sick, but the rest of us, we were all there.” Brian counted off on his fingers. “Lale had to round us all up. Jack, Harold, and I were there in the middle, trying to roll the grape leaves into tubes and get the manti to stay stuck together. Everyone else was there, because I remember Lale was very careful to keep a head count. I don’t envy her; it’s like herding cats, keeping track of everyone. Tiffany and Nicole were there too — remember, they were taking all those pictures? Since they’re always scampering off, I remember looking around for them.”

“They seem awful young to be on such an expensive trip,” I said. “And usually twenty-somethings are, I don’t know, going to more popular destinations, don’t you think? Rome or the Greek islands?”

“Or Ibiza,” Brian agreed. The young ladies in question were now in the lobby, chatting up our young — and very dishy — van driver, Emin. More blushes, more giggles, more photos.

That reminded me: As we headed to the end of the trip, I wanted to organize some tips from all of us for Emin and for Lale. They were well paid, but had done such a good job—

Something Harold had just said reminded me: I wasn’t the only one who knew what the objects might be valued at. Lale certainly did, and she knew ahead of time we’d be seeing them as well. But there was no way she would have taken the artifacts. Was there?

I shook my head; this speculation was hopeless. “Such small objects — some no bigger around than a pencil — and worth so much. You could hide dozens of them anywhere, and have a small fortune.”

Brian opened his mouth, then hesitated. “This is crazy, but—”

“Go for it,” I said.

“What if Jack or Tiffany rolled them into the grape leaves?”

“Or the manti?” I thought about it, then shook my head. “Even if they were expert, they couldn’t stuff a whole handful of coins and seals into one grape leaf. And it’s too obvious, too public. You’d have to be a magician to pull it off.”

Suddenly, I was thinking of Harold and the trick he did with his lighter. And of the supply of empty cigar tubes he might have accumulated over the course of the trip. Still too complicated. “I’m beat, Brian. Let’s go upstairs.”

“Remember, we have to put the suitcases out before we go down to breakfast tomorrow, to be loaded in the van.”

I slumped. I really didn’t want to do more organizing so late; it had been a long, tiring, eventful day. But I resigned myself as I worked; it was a small price to pay for seeing the world.

After I got into bed, I thought I’d be asleep in an instant. But I stared into the dark, listening to Brian snore softly. The noises of the air conditioner, and farther away, barely audible, the elevator and ice machine.

It had been such a wonderful trip, I thought. It’s people, really, who can spoil tourism—

I sat up and switched on the light, took out my tablet computer to check something. I spent another couple of hours thinking, then shook Brian.

“Mup,” he said. He squinted against the light. “Time ’zit?”

“It’s not time to get up, yet,” I said. “What do you know about ‘Ozymandias’?”

When he realized it really was the middle of the night, and there was no emergency, he sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“Emma, what are you talking about?”

“The theft. I don’t want to be a suspect. I’ve been there, I don’t like the feeling. I don’t want Lale to get into trouble, she’s been too good to us. And I don’t want the museum to lose its excellent artifacts and good reputation. What do you know about ‘Ozymandias’?”

“He didn’t build the tomb on Mount Nemrut,” Brian said, rubbing his eyes.

“No, I mean the poem. You had to memorize it, right?”

“Yeah, but it was like six hundred years ago. I don’t know anything about it.” He looked around. “Is there any bottled water left?”

“It’s warm.” I handed him a bottle. “Try to remember about the poem.”

“It was written by Coleridge—”

“No, it wasn’t. It was written by Shelley.”

“How do you know—?”

“I briefly flirted with the Romantics as a response to Grandpa’s obsession with Shakespeare. But I won’t ask you to take my word for it.” I held up the tablet computer I’d brought with me. There was an encyclopedia article, with the poem and its origins.

“Okay, so what does that prove?”

“It means people can know a poem, and not know anything about it,” I said with satisfaction.

He stared at me.

I told him who I thought might be responsible for the theft.

Brian shook his head. “It’s kind of a long shot, Emma. Really circumstantial.”

“Sure, and like you’ve said, it’s not my job to solve this case.” I looked at my watch, then pulled my shorts and the rest of my clothes from the back of the chair. “So I don’t need to prove anything. But it won’t hurt to ask what Lale knows about the members of the tour. She’s usually up hideously early, making calls in the lobby. I’ll just go have a quick word.”

I padded down the hall to the elevator. I always think it’s strange, being alone in such a public place, knowing people were asleep in their rooms all around me. It was a little creepy, and I was grateful for the social pretense that let us ignore the fact that we were so close to each other.

Now that was a very Western idea, I reminded myself. A very American idea; other cultures would be made comfortable by so much human proximity.

Or maybe it was just me being paranoid.

I turned the corner. Somewhere, close behind me, a door had clicked shut. The noise, even the very slight vibration, made me jump a mile. I turned around.

Jack Boyle was setting down a suitcase outside the doorway. It was the large blue wheelie bag with the flower decal on it for identification. And the monogrammed initials “S.O.”

The one that belonged to Steve Osborne.

Jack knew I recognized the bag.

“Steve still feeling unwell?” I managed to say.

“Yeah. I think he’s gonna try to see a doctor today. Get some antibiotics, or something, before we head to the airport. I told him I’d put his bag out for him, poor guy.”

The sleeve to Jack’s hiking shirt was rolled up. It was damp, and there was a faint pink tinge coloring the white technical cloth.

I forced myself to breathe normally, but my heart was in overdrive. I’d seen a lot of bloodstains in my time.

“Nice of you. Well, see you.” I waved a little wave, and forced myself to turn back down the corridor, my pulse still racing.

“Emma.”

I turned around, knowing what I’d see. Jack had a pistol trained on me.

I’ve had guns pointed at me before. Familiarity didn’t make it any easier.

“You were staring at my shirt just a little too long. I can’t let you go.”

“Huh? Shirt?” I shook my head, but my heart was sinking. He knew, or at least suspected, I knew.

“Don’t scream; I’ll shoot you and be away before anyone hears you. The only way to live is to do exactly what I say.” He gestured to the room. “Get in.”

I couldn’t go in there; it would be all over for sure. I had no doubt that Steve was either dead or dying, and if I went in, I’d soon join him. But I also knew that staying out here, hesitating too long, would end in a similar result.

A movement out of the corner of my eye sent a thrill through me. Things were going to happen very quickly. I had to be ready.

I decided the best thing to do was panic. It seemed like the easiest, most obvious thing to do.

I stepped forward, wobbling, my breath rapid and uneven. “Wha—? I can’t...”

He reached into his pocket for the key card, never taking his eyes off me. “Shut up. Get in, now.” He slid it into the door, shoved the handle down with his elbow, stuck his foot in to keep it opened.

“I can’t...” One hand flew to my chest, the other steadied me against the wall. I staggered forward a few more reluctant steps, hyperventilating. “I can’t breathe...”

Jack grew impatient. He grabbed my left arm and pulled me toward him.

I rushed in, much faster than he anticipated; he stumbled backward. I grabbed his right wrist, jamming his hand — and the pistol — down, against the door jamb. I held on with all my strength, pointing the gun away from us.

Brian ran the last few steps to us and clocked Jack with the empty ice bucket. It wasn’t enough to drop Jack, but it was enough to make him turn his head. Brian stepped out, got the angle, and punched him in the head.

Jack went down then. I stood on his wrist and took the pistol. I carefully removed the magazine. Only when I confirmed there was no round in the chamber did I feel like it was safe to exhale.

That’s when the shaking started in earnest.

The ruckus drew the attention of all the people who had been asleep nearby. Someone finally called the manager; even if I hadn’t the Turkish to explain, the sight of me holding the gun and Brian sitting on Jack Boyle’s back was enough to bring help. The manager called the police and Lale, who eventually called the museum.

In the room, we confirmed Steve was really dead. I recognized the red and purple blotches on Steve’s face and neck as evidence of suffocation. I told Lale, who conveyed this to the police, explaining I worked with the police at home sometimes.

Confronted with this evidence, Jack broke down and confessed. He and Steve had fallen out when Steve announced that he was getting cold feet. Jack panicked and smothered him with the pillow, which left the telltale hemorrhages — and the bleeding scratch on Jack’s arm.

My professional skills and habits had been helpful on this vacation after all.

“How did you guess it was Jack?” Lale asked, afterward. She had dealt very efficiently with the police and the museum representative, and was very glad to have restored the artifacts — and her reputation.

“He kept saying he was only interested in the food on the trip,” I explained. “That he was only peripherally interested in the history. Someone who’s that historically disengaged doesn’t just know that the character of Ozymandias was based on Ramses, or even if he does remember it from studying the poem—” Here I glanced at Brian. “You don’t drop terms like ‘Nineteenth Dynasty’ casually. I might have been able to put Ramses before or after Tut, but I wouldn’t have remembered the dynasty easily, and I’m a professional. He knew more about the history than he was letting on.”

“So, they decided to steal the artifacts,” Brian said, “because Steve knew from having been on this stop on another tour that they’d bring out the objects for display?”

I nodded. “The plan was for them to travel as if they were strangers. Using the excuse of his illness, Steve snuck out of the hotel and triggered the alarm at Jack’s signal, sent by text. Steve, in disguise, took the objects from Jack when we were being crowded by the other group at the cooking demonstration. They had intended to smuggle them out incorporated into a cheap beaded souvenir necklace.”

With all the official procedure, we were fortunate to make it to the airport in time to catch our flights home later the next day.

I helped Eugene with his bag, and while waiting for Brian to go to the men’s room, saw Harold Campbell waiting for his flight to New York.

“Good trip,” he said, jiggling his lighter.

“Yeah.” I shrugged. “Up until the end, anyway.”

“Oh, no. No, no,” he said, looking surprised. “I mean, it was really sad that someone died, but really, all the excitement was just an extension of the trip. I figure you teach the stuff, seeing the sites for you is already in your blood. But for me, it’s the people. I tell people I want to see other places to see how people live. But you learn just as much from the crowd you go around with. We’re not going to the circus, we are the circus.

“You can go anywhere in the world you like.” He found a cigar and stuck it in his mouth, unlit. “But people are still the best show in town.”

Copyright © 2012 by Dana Cameron

The Void It Often Brings with It

by Tom Piccirilli

Tom Piccirilli is the author of more than twenty novels, including The Last Kind Words, which received a starred review from Booklist and was called “perfect crime fiction” by best-selling author Lee Child. He is the recipient of two International Thriller Awards and four Bram Stoker Awards, and has been nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Allan Poe Award, the World Fantasy Award, Mystery Readers International’s Macavity Award, and Le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.

* * * *

Professor Chadwick wants us to call him Hal, and Hal is telling us again why he’s a genius. His voice has the mocking quality of arrogance even while he’s trying to sound humble and compassionate. The rest of the class, especially the freshman girls, are hanging on his every word as he leans back against his desk, sleeves rolled up halfway, tie loosened, dimpled chin pinched between thumb and forefinger, azure eyes bleeding sincerity.

“All great literature,” Hal says, “is about love or the absence of love. In my novels I write about the truth of love. Its pain, its dulcet desolation, and the void it often brings with it. That’s my power. That’s my gift.”

The girls practically coo as they daydream about Chadwick babies and Chadwick money. Cocktail parties on the balcony of an Upper East Side penthouse apartment. The beach house in the Hamptons, the French maid Fifi with downcast eyes, the chauffeur Franz who always tips his cap. The red-carpet premieres, the cable entertainment-show interviews. The Real Housewives of Academia.

Hal has managed to parlay three of his bestselling novels into major Hollywood deals. Unlike the other professors here, Hal isn’t losing sleep, desperate for tenure. He doesn’t need to lean against a desk and behave in a nurturing manner, attempting to mold our young eager minds. He’s doing it, he says, so he can give back. Sometimes he says he’s paying it forward. Back or forward, I don’t know, but I’m in awe of his people skills.

Jerry the Jock, who came in hoping for an easy “C” so his GPA wouldn’t drop below 2.0 and he could stay on the football team, has started a novel. It’s about an overbearing father rabbit forcing his bunny son to fatten up on corn beef hash and become a linebacker when the baby bunny would rather be a figure skater.

It’s called I Never Tackled Hard Enough for My Father: A Fable.

He read a chapter of the bunny book today and Hal actually commended Jerry for his sensitivity. The jock’s eyes got a little smoky. The guy sitting behind him patted him on the back. The girls murmured appropriately.

I’m failing the class. I don’t participate enough. I refuse to critique my fellow students. I flop on the in-class exercises. My writing doesn’t contain enough of an “emotional and personal component,” Hal says. I write about dark things without enough poetic resonance to connect to the reader. Hal says I’m full of literary fireworks without any grounding in realism. He doesn’t like my sword-and-sorcery tales. He doesn’t enjoy my dark fantasy pieces about witches and midnight sacrifices. He smiles sadly at my crime stories about good men forced to do bad things because of debt, stupidity, and beautiful women.

He suggests I start more simply, with a plot centering on the worst day of my life. I hand in a twelve-thousand-word novelette about a goblin king lost in a hospital looking for the maternity ward so he can steal children and repopulate his underground realm.

The girl sitting in front of me is Beth Moore. I’ve been crushing on her for six weeks, since the beginning of the semester. She walked into Creative Writing 102 and turned her gaze on me, and we both knew, right then, that I was already infatuated with her and would do nothing but stare at the side of her face all semester long. She wasn’t going to speak to me or look in my direction or encourage me in any way. We both understand that the great literature of my life is going to be about the absence of love.

I tried living in the dorms my freshman year and couldn’t get any work done. Between the stereo wars, parties, and binge-drinking roommates bounding in at three A.M. with faceless drunk girls crashing across bed springs, my nerves went from bad to shot. Now I have an off-campus apartment, a mother-in-law room in back of the two-floor walk-up. My landlandy, Mrs. Manfreddi, bakes me cakes and pies and doesn’t chase me down for the rent if I’m a few days late. She spends most of her time with her spindly, diseased tomato plants in the yard, cursing at them in Italian.

I write, submit to the top magazines, and collect rejections. Sometimes the mailbox is so full that the postman has to bundle my manuscript-stuffed envelopes with twine.

My insomnia is worse now than ever, but at least it lets me stay busy. When I’m not writing I’m working at one of my plethora of part-time jobs. I work the drive-through window of Cabo Wabo Cantina. I rent skates at the Boogie Paradise roller rink and shoes at the Top Tier bowling alley. I pick up extra shifts and bartend at three bars on the weekends.

This is a small college town. I see Beth Moore and her friends practically every night somewhere on Main Street. She either doesn’t recognize me or pretends not to know me. Her laughter is breezy and inspiring. I give her extra Wabo fries for free and don’t charge her for the skates. I pour her top-shelf scotch. She says thank you with a sweet tremolo of a giggle, but says it turning away, as if she’s speaking to someone beside me instead of me. I wave to her back as she heads out onto the rink, the lane, the dance floor.

I head home and study chemistry and calculus and ethics before trying to sleep. But every night ends the same. With me at my desk, staring at the page, being willful and fake. My losers quip dialogue like heroes and my heroes have the maudlin voices and doomed destinies of losers. I type “The End.”

In an effort to encourage us to do even better work, Hal suggests we hold a contest. The most popular story written in class from now until the end of the semester will win signed copies of his three novels and passes to the movie version of his current bestseller The Secret Chambers of My Heart. My classmates respond with smiles and giggles and sighs and hell-yeahs. They speak to him like they’re his children, and he speaks back to them like he’s their father. A humble, compassionate, arrogant, genius father.

They already have his books. And they all had their copies signed on the first day of class, forming a lengthy line around his desk. He touched girls on their wrists very lightly. He shook hands and clapped guys on their shoulders. I sat in my seat and watched the proceedings with a kind of awe. Hal kept asking, “And who shall I make this out to?” One after another they said their names. Hal managed to repeat each name and make it sound solemn. When they were done he glanced at me and with a chuckle asked, “And who are you?”

It’s a good question. I figure I’ll get back to him on it someday.

Fruggy Fred doesn’t like anybody watching him while he reads his story. He asks us not to turn in our seats. He’s back there behind me, clearing his throat, the pages in his hand flapping as he trembles. Some people might think his fear is part of his passion. Some people would be wrong. Hal tells him to relax and take his time. Hal promises that everything is going to be all right.

I shut my eyes and listen.

Fruggy’s worked hard to lose his holler accent. He sounds New York born and bred. He sounds like everyone else. I can hear him sort of dancing in his seat as he reads his story. All three hundred pounds of him swaying in his seat, heels shuffling, kicking my chair. I know he’s got the echoes of a jug band in his head, but he won’t let anyone else know it.

He wants everybody to understand that the fat white trash feel love. The fat can be heroic, the fat want to have children, the fat white trash can say the right words at the right times. A throb of sorrow works through his voice. He swallows tears.

I want to slap him. I want to shake him. I want to haul Fruggy to his feet and ask him, How the hell has this happened? Fruggy, how did they get you?

He’s settling for the thinnest self-description there is. Fruggy Fred doesn’t write about singing Ozark backwoods songs or playing the banjo, which he does extremely well. He doesn’t discuss how he came up out of the Missouri holler on a music scholarship. How his mother cooks crank, how his sister was killed in Afghanistan. How his daddy died from eating poisoned squirrel. The years at college have murdered his concept of himself. The rush and patter of his classmates has deformed him, made him forget who he is. Fruggy Fred used to be my roommate three years ago when I lived in the dorms. So much has changed.

He goes on about fat. He goes on about pretty girls not liking him. His voice is flat, without melody. There’s nothing mellifluous about it. Maybe the jug band is dead in his head. Maybe he can no longer pluck a banjo. They’ve done it to him. They’ve filled him full of doubt and fear, something nobody in the holler could ever do.

The fat guy in his story watches the pretty girl turn away from him and walk away into a sunset.

The pretty girls in class are crying. Hal claps his hands. The rest of them follow suit. Soon, the applause is deafening. I finally turn in my chair. Our eyes meet. Fruggy Fred is smiling so widely I can practically see his tonsils. I wonder if he’ll ever visit his sister’s grave again.

I see Beth Moore every night that week. She’s dating a few different guys and these guys all have a taste for Wabo burgers. I take their money and hand them their orders and always let my gaze linger an extra moment on Beth in the passenger seat, snuggled up beside the beau. The beau turns and hands her the fries and she plucks at the box daintily, pinching a fry between two fingers. She eats slowly, letting the fry hang from her mouth the way kids do when they’re pretending to be smoking cigarettes. She lips the fry and I tell the beau, “Thank you for visiting Cabo Wabo Burger. Please come see us again soon.” The beau ignores me. Beth ignores me. The french fry ignores me.

I watch the car speed out of the parking lot and make a squealing left turn. The brake lights blaze for an instant and then vanish. I shut my eyes and still see the burning red points for a moment, a soccer mom with a bunch of crying kids already at the window. She looks at me as if she wants me to take all her pain away. I’m looking at her with the same expression. We’re like that for a while.

The following week, Beth writes about her family. She lives her life and then lays it out across the pages without dramatic tension. Her narrative voice lacks confidence. She’s repetitive. Her dialogue is unnatural and when she reads she tries on voices. They all sound like her, especially her mother.

But the truth is there, as clear as a bell tolling vespers. She discusses her father, a cop over on Oceanside who’s nearly put in his thirty and is ready to retire. She explains how the burden of battling evil on a daily basis has taken a severe toll on her old dad. Her brother is also a police officer, and she’s witnessed him change from a moderately self-centered punk into a resentful, hard engine of fury and justice. She doesn’t have a good relationship with either of them. They drink too much. Her parents argue. Occasionally her old man slips and begins to discuss some terrible event like walking into a bodega after a hostage-crisis situation and having nothing to do except help clear away the bodies. Her brother is getting a divorce, and her three-year-old nephew wonders why Daddy isn’t coming home anymore.

She falters as she reads. Hal tells her to take her time.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and then tries to clear her throat. It doesn’t help. Her chin drops and her shoulders begin to quiver. A quiet mewling breaks from deep inside her chest.

I know that noise. I’ve heard it a thousand times before. I’ve made it a thousand times before. I start to slide from my seat but Hal is already moving to her. Of course he is. He takes her in his arms and hugs her. Of course he does. He shushes her gently as she cries against his collar. He presses his lips to her forehead.

I close my eyes and I make the noise, silently, and let it go around and around inside my head.

Hal tells us, “You must find your muse. Seek her out no matter how difficult the journey. She may be fickle. She may be shy and hide when you call to her. She may embrace you when you least expect it. But it’s your duty to discover her. It’s your obligation to provide her with whatever it is she needs.”

I think about my muse. I wonder who she is. Maybe Beth. Maybe the first girl I ever pined for. Perhaps some bully chick from first grade who haunts me under my skin whose name and face I’ve forgotten. The drive is there. It makes my hands strong. I don’t use a computer. I type on an old manual Underwood. I want to feel the foot-pounds of pressure when I hit a key. It’s work. Writing for an hour on a manual burns up more calories than three games of racquetball. I eat one of Mrs. Manfreddi’s homemade pies a day and there’s still not an ounce of fat on me.

My writing courses through my system. It has impact. It changes me. My muse, whoever it is, knows this.

I try to imagine what it is she needs. What sacrifices must be made in the name of passion, creativity, and success.

Hal has given a name to his muse, and calls her Pandora. He thinks he’s being cute. He always thinks he’s being cute. He says, “Pandora loves no man, not even me. But she understands who and what I am.”

What the hell. I steal the name.

Pandora, you’re my muse. We need to get back to work. You don’t love me but you know what I am.

Beth and tonight’s beau are bowling. The beau is pretty good, has a nice steady throwing style that rolls along the edge of the gutter and then rockets back into the sweet spot with a thunderous crack. After every strike Beth stands and jumps in place, bringing her hands together for an instant as if in prayer, and then clapping energetically. He holds his arms wide and grabs her, lifting her off her feet, twirling. It would look very romantic except for the silly bowling shoes.

I close my eyes, hearing the action in all the alleys. The spares being picked up, the strikes, the gutter balls. The kids crying, the geriatrics doing their best to stay active. The drunks in the bar arguing over the game on television. I listen to Beth’s clapping.

After their last game, the beau pays me and they turn in their pairs of shoes and while I’m handing the guy back his change, Beth stands barefoot on tippy-toe and licks him beneath the ear. He meets my eyes with a vain expression. I can’t blame him. If she was licking me under the ear I’d be looking at every working-stiff doofus the same way. Still barefoot, the two of them traipse across the carpeted floor toward the front door. I stand there with the disinfectant about to spray their shoes.

Mrs. Manfreddi calls me out to the shed. The fence at the back of her property has fallen over and she needs me to help drive in new posts. Dead trees dapple the area. Rotting roots have caused the earth to settle. She tells me that the grade of the back lawn has always been off, and twenty-seven years of heavy rain flooding the fence line have created a sump. She hands me a rake, a pick, a spade, a chainsaw, the Rototiller, a root-grinder, and suggests how I should cut down the trees and stack the cordwood. How I should turn and level the soil. It shouldn’t take more than four or maybe six weeks, she says. After I get the first tree down, she’ll have a nice blueberry pie waiting.

I yank the cord on the chainsaw, give it some gas. Sawdust spits into the wind.

Woody Wright is full of myth and warriors and gods. He writes about sorcerers and barbarians in the distant past who battle in stone temples at the tops of black cliffs. Evil tentacled beings slither in the skies and at the bottom of volcanic pits. His heroes are always men who take what they want, pillaging and using two-handed broadaxes to cleave the skulls of enemies who don’t immediately acquiesce. The women are all dancing slave girls trained in the ways of love. He uses the term “red ruin” ad nauseam. Men’s faces are constantly being turned into a “red ruin” by swords and maces.

Woody’s voice is high-pitched, but he has a sense of drama. He speaks with a growl. He acts out his battles as he reads, wielding invisible weapons overhead. Black veins bulge in his throat. When the horses fall in battle he whinnies and neighs and strikes his desk. His head must be loud with screams because he reads louder and louder, as if he’s deaf to himself. Sweat is slathered across his top lip. He raises a hand to shield his eyes from the torches of his enemies setting fire to his village. He cries for his murdered father. He chugs down a goblet of wine with the slave girl he has freed. He’s run through by a spear but still manages to kill his own murderer, an enemy tyrant king of Lemuria whose death means freedom for a hundred different nations.

With a gurgle, Woody whispers, “And so my name... passes into chronicles of the great ages... gaahhh... ack...”

Hal is impressed. So am I. Woody’s face is a red ruin of hope and relief. He slumps across the desk and, completely slack, drops to the floor, unconscious.

The paramedics ask us what happened. They’ve got an oxygen mask on Woody and are strapping him into a gurney. The class looks at one another in silence, and then we all start talking at once. Hal’s voice slices through the din like a battle-ax.

“The boy... he’s a master storyteller who gave his all.”

The girls nod. Jerry the Jock drapes the back of his hand across his eyes and wipes away tears.

The paramedics look at us like we’re all out of our heads.

I never work the front counter of Cabo Wabo Burger, but somehow I’m working it tonight when Fruggy Fred walks in. He spots me immediately and nearly turns around. We’ve been doing this dance for three years, since I moved out of the dorm. He took it personally despite my explanation that I just couldn’t take the noise. Maybe that’s where his self-doubt began. Maybe it’s all my fault, what’s happened to him.

“You got a minute?”

I’m working the front counter of a fast-food joint, but he’s caught me at a lull. There’s no one else around so I say, “Sure.”

Fruggy has a light step. He writes about the fat a lot but he doesn’t look bad, doesn’t seem to be uncomfortable. There’s a liveliness there, or at least there used to be. The years on campus have taken a toll on him. He’s gotten a touch sophisticated, his eyes don’t carry the same amused glint.

“What are you doing?” he asks, almost angrily.

“Me? I’m covering the counter.”

“No,” he says. “What are you doing?”

I know what he’s talking about, but I ask, “What are you talking about?”

“You know what I mean. What are you doing to yourself?” He looks me up and down. “I see you all over town, working all these loser jobs. You’re rail thin, man. You’ve got black bags under your eyes. When was the last time you ate a real meal? When was the last time you got a good night’s sleep?”

More good questions. Everybody has them. “Why don’t you play the banjo anymore?”

“How do you know I don’t? It’s been three years since we were roomies.”

“You never would have used a word like ‘roomies’ before. Where’s your accent?”

His face is all creases and flat, blunt planes. His tongue juts and he licks his lips. He’s got more to say but I jump in.

“You never used to give a damn what anyone thought of you. The world got to you, Fruggy. You let it eat you up.”

“We all care. I just didn’t let anyone know that I did.”

Maybe it’s true. Maybe I care as much as he does. It doesn’t feel that way.

I head back to the counter, get a few fresh burgers, a couple orders of fries, bag it, and hand it to him.

“Thank you for visiting Cabo Wabo Burger. Please come see us again soon.”

Despite all the jobs and the work I do in Mrs. Manfreddi’s yard, shifting tons of earth and lumber every day, sleep continues to avoid me. I have hours after midnight to burn through. I’ve tried to find a job as a security guard, but there’s nothing available in our small town. It leads me out onto the street. I walk the neighborhoods. I circle the entire town. I walk past Professor Chadwick’s house two or three times, then lean against a tree down the block and stare at his front porch. The hedges behind me are high, the moon only a sliver.

I watch Hal moving across the brightly lit rooms, the windows without a speck of dirt or dust. His Ecuadorian maid spends an hour every morning washing them down.

He has homes in Manhattan and Los Angeles, and a cabin right on the beach in Martinique. But Hal spends most of the year right in our small town. Giving back and paying forward.

I’m immensely patient. I stand there as the cool night continues to pass. Hal’s at the computer, on the phone, watching television. He pops in a DVD and I wonder if he’s watching one of his own movies. He’s done the commentary to them. He’s got cameos in all three flicks.

I wait in the darkness. I let it pass through me. I dream on my feet, writing in my head, thinking of the next tree that’s got to fall.

At two A.M. Beth turns the corner and comes walking up the street. I fade back even farther into the hedges. Beth is beautiful, draped in silver moonlight. The nerves in my fingertips burn to touch her. If not her, then my typewriter keys.

Beth steps up the walkway to Hal’s house and knocks on the screen door softly, too softly. Then she thumps with the side of her fist and is embarrassed at the harsh noise. She rubs her hands together and then tightens her arms around her belly, hugging herself. She turns back to face the street as if checking to see if anyone is watching. She’s nervous. She trembles in the chill breeze. Her bangs flap one way across her face and then the other.

Hal comes to the door. He doesn’t look happy to see her. How can he not be happy to see her? I say it aloud, whispering, “How?” He’s anxious and a touch angry. They quarrel for a moment and Hal stands in the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest. He shakes his head and Beth nods vigorously and he shakes his head some more.

Beth breaks down and begins to cry. I take a step toward her. It’s all I can do. She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t want me. All of my love isn’t worth a foot-high stack of ink-stained paper to her. I drop back and watch Hal lift her chin so that she faces him. He stares at her tear-strewn face and something in him softens. He reaches out and pulls her into his arms, where she begins to sob uncontrollably. He leads her into the house and the door swiftly shuts.

I stand in the dark thinking, Oh God.

The next day, Beth isn’t in class.

Hal has a slight scratch on his cheek.

We’re sliding into finals. Beth’s been out of class all week long. We have projects. We have our contest. Jodi writes about her father. Matt writes about his mother. Georgie is a rocket man, he tells us what’s happening on distant planets, where astronauts are pursued by alien dinosaurs and intelligent man-eating plant life. Phil, he’s got this ’50s jazzy bop prose thing happening, talking about sweet rides and hot chicks and life on the streets smoking J and blowing ax in darkened gin joints off St. Mark’s Place. Frieda, she’s into parables and world views and heavy themes. She writes about seekers and wanderers and women who climb mountains to find answers from starved Hindi who can hold their breath for six hours. Behind her, Eloise discusses her memoir. She tells us about Atlantis, which resides on the moon, and is the place where all the souls of the dead go to rest while awaiting the Apocalypse. She knows this because, she says, she was born with a caul, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, and she has mystical abilities. She allows that some of us might not believe her, but that’s our choice.

Hal discusses each story, whether it’s fiction or not, at length. He praises syntax, lyricism, passionate richness, heartstring reverberation, depth of character, the wellsprings of imagination. The class applauds one another. The class applauds itself.

Hal asks me, “Do you have something to submit for the contest?”

“I do,” I tell him.

He’s surprised. He gives me a smug grin and holds my gaze a few seconds too long. There’s hate there. I don’t mind. He’s not the only one I bring it out in. Eloise glares at me. So does Jerry the Jock. So do others. I smile and try to turn up my charm. It doesn’t help. Hal holds his hand out for my story. I hand it to him and he flips through the pages. It’s a holographic manuscript, full of tiny holes from where the keys have punched through. It clearly hasn’t been written on a computer screen and shot from a laser printer.

“It’s short,” he says.

“It’s not finished yet.”

“Then how can you submit it?”

“Consider it a special instance.”

He cocks his head at me and frowns. For the first time his smarm is gone and there’s something else in his expression, a kind of heat. “Wonderful. Please read it.”

Unlike the others who stand beside their seats and read facing Hal, I walk to the front of the class and turn my back to him. I clear my throat and say, “The title of my story is ‘The Void It Often Brings With It.’ ”

Then I begin.

I recite, “Professor Ferdnick wants us to call him Bill, and Bill is telling us again why he’s a genius. His voice has the mocking quality of arrogance even while he’s trying to sound humble and compassionate. The rest of the class, especially the freshman girls, are hanging—”

Afterwards, the class is quiet. They keep checking Hal for a reaction so they’ll know what they’re supposed to feel and say. But Hal has no reaction. His face is pale and utterly empty. I’ve taken a little wind out of his hair. A mean swirl of darkness appears in his eyes and he hikes his lips into a bitter smile. He says, “Please come see me during my office hours.”

“Sure.”

His office hours are only a half-hour long, directly following class today. I give him a head start up the corridor and then follow.

When I get there his door is shut. He’s going to make me knock. Hal needs his petty victories.

I need mine as well. I walk in without knocking. Hal is in his chair, feet up on his desk, azure eyes glistening. His mind’s racing with contingencies, plot threads, possibilities. His hands are trembling. He’s capable of anything at the moment. His expression is at once playful, lethal, and petrified. I notice that the top desk drawer is open. I wonder what he’s got within easy reach. A letter opener, rat poison, a pearl-handled snub .32? Maybe nothing more than a checkbook. I imagine that Hal has gotten rid of a lot of troubles by handing over a check.

He waits for me to put the touch to him. He wants to know how far I’ll go. I let him see it in the set of my lips. I’m going to go all the way. I think of Beth crying and Hal shaking his head. He reaches out and pulls her into his arms, where she begins to sob uncontrollably. I want to kill him.

Hal cracks and asks, “What do you want?”

“What makes you think I want anything?”

“Everybody wants something.”

“True enough. Why don’t you use your writer’s acumen and make a guess at what I’m after?”

Hal reaches into his drawer and my belly tightens. He withdraws a short wedge of cash. Maybe five hundred dollars. Silly money, for him. He nudges it over to my side of the desk. I don’t take it. Our eyes meet again, our gazes clashing with such violence that I can almost see sparks flying.

I can’t hurt him, and he knows it. I can only inconvenience him a bit. I already have. Some of the freshman girls weren’t looking at him quite as perkily after I finished my story. I’ve pulled a brick from his ivory tower. That’s all it takes to start the whole thing falling down around his ears. Words have power. Rumors and suspicions can destroy a man. His hand dangles in the drawer.

“Pick a number,” he says.

“No,” I say. “I’ve got a better idea.”

“Such as?”

“For you, as my trusted mentor, to introduce me to your agent and some of your Hollywood contacts.”

I’ve got the manuscript for my latest novel in my backpack. I pull it out and hand it to him. He looks at me with some surprise, but not much. He reads the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first page. Then he grins, and the grin grows wider until it’s a beaming smile, and then he starts to chuckle, and that becomes wild and resentful laughter.

He’s frightened. He might be the most terrified man I’ve ever met, because he’s got the most to lose.

I wonder what that’s like.

“Congratulations,” he tells me, beaming. “You’ve won!”

The next day, in front of the class, Hal presents me with the three signed books, the movie tickets, and a colorful certificate suitable for framing that he printed out which declares me the winner of the First Annual Chadwick Creative Arts Competition. My classmates are astonished, stunned into silence, and sit in their seats clapping sluggishly. Fruggy Fred’s jaw hangs practically to the desk. Jerry the Jock begins to cry. So does Woody Wright. So does Eloise. The rest fume and glower.

I bow and make a little speech about how proud and grateful I am to Hal and my fellow students, who inspired me to greatness.

Hal’s word is good. His agent calls that very afternoon and says he loves my novel. It shows great emotional resonance, he says. The publishing world moves rapid fire. Hollywood is even quicker. By the end of the weekend Hal’s agent — my agent — has secured a three-book deal and managed to swing a sizeable film option with a major studio. He calls me baby and talks money. This is going to be a hell of a ride, baby, you’re aiming for the top. He says a number and the number is so high that it’s barely conceivable to me. I hold the phone to my chest, listening for my heartbeat, but there’s nothing except the tinny voice of the agent going, Baby, baby.

I whisper, “Thank you, Pandora.”

I drive over to the Moore house.

I can hear her parents arguing upstairs. Beth’s name erupts from deep in her father’s chest. It’s a prayer, a hymn, and a curse. He could be dying on his deathbed, crying out one last time. I climb the porch steps, knock at the front door, and wait. No one answers. I knock and wait again. Her father rips open the door and stands there in all his anger and pain, his face mottled, lips twisted. His daughter’s been missing for more than two weeks.

“What the hell do you want?” he asks. His voice is loud but full of cracks, as if his very next word will shatter like defective crystal.

I say nothing. I hand him my story. My name’s not on it, but I feel like I’m giving over my life’s accomplishment. He’ll recognize the characters. He’s trained to be suspicious of everyone and everything, and his daughter is missing. He looks like he’s about to throw the pages back at me but something in my eyes stops him. He frowns and a black vein throbs in the center of his forehead.

He begins reading the first sentence of my tale. His wife eases up beside him and cocks her head at me. I think I might be crying. I can’t be sure until tears flick across the lenses of my glasses. I walk away while Beth’s old man shouts for me to stop. I stumble up the sidewalk blindly.

Six days later, on the front page, Beth’s father seems almost serene compared to how he looked that evening on his porch. His expression is one of controlled rage and semi-satisfaction. Hal is being led away by the sheriff, who grips Hal tightly on the shoulder. Beth’s cell-phone bill has been recovered. The cops cracked her text messages. She had a lot to say about Professor Chadwick and the way he made her feel. The things he whispered. The caresses in the night. She wants to know when he’ll marry her. She wants to know what they’ll name the baby.

I watch the news. He’s a little disheveled but it only adds to his looks, giving him a sense of wildness. He claims not to know where she is. He says that she visited him in the early hours of the morning more than a week ago and left a couple of hours later. He swears he didn’t hurt her.

They book him on a couple of trumped-up charges. Really, they have nothing, except possibly inappropriate behavior between a teacher and a student. Beth was eighteen. They can’t hold him for long. He’s got top-notch lawyers. The cops want to go through his yard with methane probes but Hal’s attorneys are way ahead of the curve and block the police at every turn. He’ll be out in a day or two. He’ll be done at the college, but what does Hal care? He can give back and pay forward in a lot of other ways, at a lot of other universities.

No one knows where Beth is.

I can afford a much better apartment now, but I don’t want to move. I wait here in the dim corner of the room, standing at the window, and stare into Mrs. Manfreddi’s dark backyard. She still curses her tomatoes, but maybe not as much lately. The work continues. The fence is almost finished, the ground leveled. The moonlight pools across the soil, silver on black, and it makes me want to run out there and dive and go swimming.

Hal’s career is still riding high, but not as high as it had been. The agent wants a new book from me as soon as possible.

I sweat over the manual typewriter, taking the time to discover my muse. She’s fickle. She’s shy and hides when I call to her. She embraces me when I least expect it. I provide her with whatever it is she needs.

Pandora waits with me in the darkness. I am a red ruin. The great literature of my life is the absence of the woman I love. I’ll never heal. I’ll never leave. She’ll haunt and hate me forever. She’ll warm me on the bitterly cold nights. I miss Beth.

In my stories I write about the truth of love: its pain, its dulcet desolation, and the void it often brings with it.

Copyright © 2012 by Tom Piccirilli

Lost Cause

by N. J. Cooper

Natasha Cooper began writing fiction after ten years as a publishing executive. Her first books were historical novels but she soon turned to crime fiction, where her best-known creation to date is barrister Trish Maguire. Several years ago the London author launched a new series starring forensic psychologist Karen Taylor, and for those books she has signed herself N.J. Cooper. The third Karen Taylor novel, Face of the Devil, was published in June. The previous title in the series, No Escape, appeared in the U.S. in 2009 as a Pocket Books paperback.

It’s people you leave, not places. I’d been wrong about that too. For years, I’d told myself it was this empty landscape I’d hated. Only the shushing of the wind in the willows and the calling of birds broke the silence, and they’d never been any use to me.

I gazed at the garden, still a big semicircle with the grass bordered by flowering shrubs and the odd fruit tree among the willow saplings. Whoever the current owners were, they must have shared his taste for nature only barely tamed.

The river still ran along the bottom of the lawn, with the orchard on the far side and the wet empty fields beyond. I could just make out the distant hills, and I thought of how I’d hated the flatness and the loneliness.

A big white bird flapped down onto the rickety bridge he’d made when he bought the land for the orchard, and I heard his rich deep voice echo in my head: “That’s an egret, Kim. Have you ever seen one before?”

How could I? Only six when I’d first come here, but already the dangerous victor of eight failed fosterings, I’d never been outside a city.

This place had seemed like a prison, and he my jailer. I’d known he must be weird from the start. If I hadn’t hurt so many of the other children, I’d never have been sent here. He’d been the carer of last resort, a man who’d had some success with tough boys in the past. This time, when they’d run out of options, they’d given him a girl. Me.

The egret lifted itself from the bridge up into the sky. Today the great space above the wetland was clear bright blue. I didn’t remember that, any more than I remembered the wildflowers that were turning the fields ahead of me into a yellow and white froth. Everything here was beautiful. Why hadn’t I seen it then?

The low-built old farmhouse had friendly-looking green-painted windows in its sturdy white walls, and a steeply sloping roof of terra-cotta tiles, rippled like the sea.

“Double Romans, they’re called, Kim,” he’d once said, always teaching, pointing things out, trying to make me someone I wasn’t.

There were no cars at the front of the house and neither sound nor light from inside, so I let myself push open the side gate and walk right into the semicircular garden. If anyone challenged me, I could pretend I thought the house was for sale. I saw at once that someone had changed the scrubby vegetable patch into a neat set of raised beds, beautifully kept and showing pristine rows of new growth.

I thought of the slugs, horrible squelchy things, that I’d collected once when he’d pissed me off, nagging about my homework or my clothes or hair. I must have been eleven by then. The slugs had seemed fair revenge for the nagging and the way he’d fallen asleep in his chair, leaving his mouth open....

A cloud sidled across the sun and took away even the thin, inadequate English warmth I’d felt on my face, making me shiver. Or was that memory? Or guilt?

The slugs had been the least of it. I saw so much now, more or less the age he must have been when he’d taken me in. I hadn’t understood any of it then: how badly I’d needed him to be safe and kind and so how hard I’d pushed him to make him reveal himself the opposite.

I’d never known an adult who couldn’t be cruel. All those failed fosterings had proved to me that any one of them, however calm they’d seemed at first, could be driven to take off their masks of kindness. Only he had resisted nearly everything I’d tried to make him do.

None of my malice or my violence had made him hit me or lock me up. I still don’t know what a sight of my true feelings might have done because I’d never let him see those.

I used to watch him, tall and upright and shabbily dressed, smiling at me as he calmly talked on and on, using words as reins and bits and goads and whips. Now I wondered what would have happened if I’d howled and told him what it had been like before and flung myself into his arms. Would he have picked me up and cradled me and made it all safe and different?

Or would he have stuck to his line of teaching me the things he liked, trying to make me into what he wanted?

Sometimes I had tried. But never for long. Waiting for horror to descend had been unbearable. I’d always rather have done something to bring it down quickly and get it over.

“He’s a good man,” my social worker said. One of my social workers. I don’t remember which. They blurred at this distance.

I walked now across the lawn, remembering the opportunities for rebellion the grass had given me. I’d refuse to mow when he asked me to, or mess about with the straight lines he’d left on the lawn, or hide small dangerous stones in the longer grass to bugger up the mower blade and give him trouble.

Standing at last on the edge of the river, I wondered if I’d see the kingfisher today. I never had. I don’t think I’d even believed it existed. I’d thought he was lying about that too.

“You have to be quiet, Kim. And very still. And you have to watch. Once you’ve seen one for the first time, it’ll get easier. You’ll learn to recognise the flash of greeny blue, just above the water. Once they’ve let you see them the first time, they seem to slow down for you.”

Not for me, I’d thought then. I thought it still. No beautiful wild thing would change its course for me. Why should it? I’d always been a lost cause. The source of endless trouble for anyone who’d ever been lumbered with me. That’s what one set of foster parents had said. Dangerous, too.

In England, anyway. Out in Australia, I’d learned to be different. Someone else. I’d had friends and work and my own money. Never much money. With a messed-up education like mine, you didn’t get well-paid work. But I’d done okay. I’d even found a bloke. He was a good man, as well as the reason why I was here now, smelling the wetness of the peat and clay all around me, the squashed grass, the horses in the far field, and the sweetness of the wildflowers, remembering.

“You’d better go back, Sally,” Sam had said a week ago, using the name I’d chosen for myself when I’d run away to become someone else. “Something’s not right in you and you’re talking more and more about England. Go back and lay the ghosts. Make your peace with your memories, whatever they are. I’ll buy you an open ticket so you can take your time. We can afford it. Don’t come back until you’re ready.”

“When will that be?” I’d asked, standing on the beach, with the sun drilling down into my shoulders, my ears full of the crashing surf and the shrill calls of happiness from the unknowing people all around us. I’d felt sullen in a way I’d almost forgotten, ready to dump it all on someone else again.

“You’ll know when you’re ready,” Sam had said, tucking stray wisps of hair behind my ears under the sun hat. “I can’t tell you.”

When I was six my hair had been white blond, then it had darkened. Later, I’d dyed it all kinds of colours, chosen to make him angry. By the time I’d stolen the passport at Heathrow, I had a mousy-brown ponytail, like the girl I’d picked out of the London-bound taxi queue as my target. The Aussie sun had bleached it since.

Looking back, I can’t see why I wasn’t afraid at Heathrow. I’d had a bagful of his money — all I could get from the house and the cash machines — and the nicked British passport. Why hadn’t I been afraid a report of what I’d done might get to Sydney before me so that I’d be arrested on the plane? Why had I felt cocooned in some transparent casing no one would be able to break?

I still didn’t understand it, but once I’d got to Sydney unmolested I chucked the passport into the sea, then found the kind of bar where they’re happy to give you work for cash, even if you haven’t any proof of identity. It was also the kind of place where people who offer fake ID documents can be found. I’d waited till I was sure of one, then paid his price without letting him know how much I hated him. Once I’d paid I was free. For the first time in my life, I was free.

No one could do it now. Not with CCTV cameras everywhere, and DNA and e-mail.

It was the first thing I’d ever done well. I’d tried to make it the start of someone I could like. Sally. For a time I’d thought I’d won. But memories had grown in the dark silence until they’d devoured my sleep and my health.

He walked with me everywhere now, and his face hung over me as I lay in bed. I couldn’t forget the warmth in his dark eyes when I’d done something that pleased him, or their hardness when I’d failed.

He must have been lonely too. I can see that now. But then he’d seemed all-powerful, without feelings or fears or needs.

I turned my head away from the river. His voice sounded again, bumping around in my mind, as smooth and comforting as rich hot chocolate:

“Sometimes they say that only people who deserve it actually see the kingfisher, but I think that’s sentimental, Kim.”

“Then I am sentimental,” I said aloud to the space he’d once inhabited. “I don’t deserve it.”

I turned my back on the river and walked at last towards the rhubarb patch, where we’d had our last encounter. It was a mound, carefully sloped to make the water drain away so that it wouldn’t rot the crowns. How well I remembered the care he’d lavished on those red stalks and their poisonous yellowy-green leaves. Bending down over them, he went on talking to me even as he weeded around his acidic, horrible fruit.

“I know you’ll be legally free to go on your birthday, Kim. But you can’t. You may be nearly old enough, but you’re not fit to live alone. Not yet. One day, I’ll help you go. But for now you must stay here. And I...”

He’d never managed to say whatever it was he’d do because I’d raised the old iron bar like an axe above my head and brought it crashing down onto the back of his head and then his spine.

Now I looked at the scarlet stalks of rhubarb, asking the old questions that had come to torture me: Had he died at once? Who had found him? Could he have been saved? Why hadn’t they come after me?

Tyres squeaked on the paving, like something out of one of my nightmares of retribution. I thought of hiding, or climbing the wall into next-door’s garden. But I had to face it. I’d always known it would come. And better here than in Australia with Sam. At least Sam would never have to know who I really was, what I’d done. I turned to face it.

A wheelchair came to a stop just by the rhubarb bed. He raised his head, white-haired now, and stared right at me. His dark eyes were the same. His voice too:

“Thank God you’re safe, Kim.”

Copyright © 2012 by N.J. Cooper

The Suitcase

by Edward D. Hoch

Since 2008, when this magazine lost one of its greatest contributors, Edward D. Hoch, we’ve been presenting occasional reprints of stories he sold to other publications. Most of the stories have not been typical of the sort of work Ed Hoch did for EQMM. His work for us was predominantly in the classical vein — fairly clued whodunits with series characters readers came to know intimately. Over the past four years we’ve tried to show, through these reprints, Ed Hoch’s versatility. Here, for instance, we see that he was a master of the story with a twist in the tail.

* * * *

The plane, a silver bird dipping its wings to the far-off dawn, came in low over Jason Lean’s farmland. Too low, he remembered thinking, for he’d seen so many hundreds on the airport approach that he almost at times felt he could fly one. Too low, with the rising sun in the pilot’s eyes and the double row of power lines crossing the tip of the hill. He shouted something, to be heard only by the field birds and the indifferent cows, then screwed his face in a sort of horror as the great plane touched the unseen wires.

There was a crackle of blue flame, no more than that of a match lit and suddenly dying, but it was enough to spell death to an airliner. The entire hillside seemed to explode as the plane twisted into the ground, boring deep like some hibernating animal, spewing flames that might have told you the animal was a dragon.

Jason Lean watched until the first flash of flame had died, and then began the short trek across the valley to the wreckage on the hillside. Others would have seen the crash too, he knew, and already it would be tapping out on the news tickers of the world. How many dead — fifty, sixty? Those big planes carried a lot of people these days. He shook his head sadly at the thought, but did not increase his pace. He already knew he would find nothing alive when he reached the smoldering wreckage.

Now here and there a tree was burning, and there ahead he could see the tail section of the plane itself, a great silver thing that sat silent now as a giant tombstone. Padded seats, so comfortable with their bodies still strapped sitting — grotesque, but all too real. And strewn across the landscape, wreckage, flesh, baggage, mail pouches, fallen trees, dangerously dangling wires. As if a giant hand — a flaming devil’s hand — had written its signature on the hillside. All dead, all.

He walked among them, terrified, remembering somewhere deep within the recesses of his mind a time when, very young, he’d walked through a country graveyard at night. He took in all the details of grief and tragedy, the spilled suitcases, the child’s toys, the scorched and splintered packing cases... and then his eyes fell on one suitcase, resting apart from the others, its leather hide barely marked by the smoke.

It was a large bag, of pale pebbled pigskin, with two tough straps around it to reinforce the lock. It was the only one he saw that had neither burned nor tumbled open to spread its contents over the landscape. Jason Lean stood for some moments staring at the bag, as if it held some strange sort of fascination for him. Then, in an instant of certainty, he stood and grasped the plastic handle, lifting the suitcase from the ground. He turned once to look over his shoulder, to make certain that none of the blackened corpses moved in accusation. Then he hurried back down the hillside, through the smoky haze of destruction, carrying his treasure like some traveler only just returned from a world tour.

“A plane crash,” Martha said when he returned. “What a terrible thing!”

“Terrible,” Jason agreed. He always agreed with his wife. “I was over there, looking at the wreckage. They’re all dead.” Already, on the distant ridge, they could see men moving like ants. Police, ambulances, morgue wagons, reporters — all converging now on the scene of disaster. Making their way carefully around the fallen wires and the blackened wreckage. Hoping, then feeling hope die as they saw what Jason Lean had seen.

“What’s that you’ve got?” she asked, noticing the suitcase for the first time.

“I found it up by the wreckage. It’s not burned or anything. Must have been thrown clear.”

“And you took it?” She made the words into something terrible, and for the first time he realized just what he had done. “You took it? From the dead?”

“I... I thought it might have something valuable in it. They’re all dead. It belongs to no one.” But even as he spoke the words he knew he would never convince her.

“That’s looting! It’s like robbing graves, but even worse. Jason, you have to take it back this minute, leave it where you found it.”

“Don’t be silly — how could I do that when the hill’s swarming with people?” It was the first time he had ever raised his voice to her, and he regretted it at once. “I’ll get rid of it, just as soon as I open it up and look inside.”

“Jason, you’re not opening that suitcase! I can’t imagine anything more horrible than pawing about in the belongings of some poor dead creature who was so much alive just an hour ago.”

“But... but there might be something valuable inside, Martha. It’s an expensive suitcase, you can see that. Suppose it contains fancy clothes, or an expensive camera, or important papers. Or even money!”

“Jason, either you return that suitcase this minute, or you take it out behind the barn and bury it. I’m not going to have it here. I’m not going to have you opening it and going through it. I don’t want the man’s ghost coming and haunting us for your awful crime!”

He knew it was useless when she got in one of those moods. And yet his will was torn between her commanding words and the questioning suitcase that rested now on the floor between his feet. “Martha...”

“Bury it! Get it out of my sight, Jason!”

“All right.” He went out with bowed head, carrying the heavy suitcase beyond the faded red barn to the little animal graveyard. While Martha watched from a distance he dug a shallow hole and buried the pigskin bag between the old cow and last year’s cat. “All right. It’s done.”

But as he followed her into the house there was a sort of sadness in his heart.

The following morning a car stopped on the road and a tall young man walked back to the barn where Jason was busy with his daily chores. “Hello there,” he called out. “Got a minute?”

Jason set down his milk pails and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Sure, mister. What can I do for you?”

“We’re investigating yesterday’s plane crash over on the hill. We thought you might have seen something that could help us.” The man had taken out a little notebook. “You’re Jason Lean, correct?”

“That’s me, and I saw it, all right. Plane came in too low. Hit those power lines. Was just at dawn, and I suppose the sun might have blinded the pilot for a minute. It hit the lines and that was the end of it.”

“Did you go over to see the wreckage?”

“I... No, I started to, but then turned back. I was afraid of those fallen power lines.”

“Just as well,” the investigator said, making a brief note in his book. “You couldn’t have done anything. They were all killed instantly.”

“Yes. Horrible.” Jason turned to stare out across the valley, toward the hillside scar which would take many seasons to heal.

“Thanks for your time,” the man said. “I may be back to talk to you again.”

“Certainly. Anything I can do...”

The man nodded a smile and started back to his car. He hadn’t asked about the suitcase, Jason thought. They’d never missed it. Burnt to ashes, they probably supposed.

And that night, in bed next to the cold flesh of his wife, Jason imagined it all again. Opening the suitcase, finding a lifetime’s treasure nestled there waiting. What would it be? Money? A woman’s wardrobe and jewels? A salesman’s sample kit of fine furs? Something for Martha, perhaps. Or himself. Even a fine new suit that could be made to fit him.

The next day, in the late afternoon, while Martha was cleaning in the front of the house, his uncertain footsteps took him once more to the animal graveyard beyond the barn. Perhaps, if he could only dig up the suitcase and look — then bury it again before she ever knew the difference. Yes, that was what he would do. Must do.

He retrieved the old spade from the barn and started to dig. After a moment’s work he could feel the familiar leather hide as he scraped the dirt from it.

“Jason!”

“Martha. What are you...?”

“Jason, you were going to open it! Cover it up this instant! Don’t you realize it will bring us nothing but tragedy? Don’t you realize it belongs to a dead man?”

“All right, Martha. I was just...”

“Cover it up, Jason. And don’t do that again.”

He covered it up.

But still, as the days passed and the memory of the crash itself drifted further to the back of his conscious mind, there was still the shape of the sealed suitcase to obsess him. He saw it in his waking and sleeping hours, saw it closed as first he’d met it, and open with all its treasures exposed. It became, in various fantasies, a spy’s hoard of secret plans, an embezzler’s final crime, a businessman’s stock of everyday valuables. He imagined all the hundreds of things that might come tumbling out if only he looked. The things he’d never owned; like an electric razor, or a portable radio, or a fine camera.

No, decided Jason with finality, after a week of torment. Whatever was in that suitcase, it was not going to rot in the ground behind the barn. He found Martha in the kitchen and told her of his decision.

“I’m going to dig it up and open it,” he said.

“Jason...”

“Nothing you can say will stop me, Martha, I have to know what’s inside it.”

“Jason, there’s death in that suitcase. I can feel it in my bones.”

“I have to know!” he screamed at her. And when she stepped heavily into his path he brushed her aside as he would some animal in the field.

“Stop, Jason!”

He hit her, only to shut that refusing mouth, only to silence her for a few important moments. She fell heavily, her head catching the edge of the old stove. He sucked in his breath and bent over her, chilled now to the bone. She wasn’t moving and he knew in some fantastic manner that he’d killed her.

But he didn’t stop. He hurried on to the barn, with a speed born now of nameless panic. The spade, digging in the familiar earth, uncovering, revealing.

Yes, the suitcase. Still there like some Pandora’s box awaiting him. His hands fumbled with the straps, teeth biting into lips, forehead sweating a chill moisture.

But it was locked.

Into the barn, carrying it gently now, with clods of earth falling from it. Into the barn, and a few careful blows with the pitchfork, prying the lock apart until it snapped under the pressure. Finally.

He opened the suitcase.

The government inspector found them, some time later, when he stopped by the Lean farmhouse to ask some further questions about the airliner crash. He found Martha Lean on the kitchen floor, and she looked so peaceful it was hard to believe she was dead.

And he found Jason Lean in the barn, kneeling in a sort of daze over an open suitcase. It was a salesman’s sample case. It was filled with leather-bound Bibles.

Copyright © 1962 by Edward D. Hoch. First published in The Saint magazine.

Good Intentions

by Michael Z. Lewin

The first character Michael Z. Lewin created, back in 1969, was Albert Samson. Samson’s debut case was intended to be a short story but grew into a novel. The Indianapolis private eye most recently featured at novel length in 2004’s Eye Opener, but he was last seen in the December 2011 EQMM story “Who I Am,” with a client who claimed to be an extraterrestrial. Samson and his eccentric client are back this month, in an adventure that’s laced with Michael Z. Lewin’s wry humor.

1.

It seemed like the rain would never stop. I was getting cabin fever and I wasn’t even in a cabin. Had I ever been in a cabin? I mean, a cabin? I couldn’t remember one. I wanted to go to a cabin. Experience Cabinness. Be thoroughly cabined. The rain seemed like it would never stop.

I was bored. There is only a certain amount that a private investigator can do constructively when he is without clients, even in a fascinating, action-packed city like Indianapolis. I’d done it and it wasn’t even noon yet. We do get rains like this here, but not usually in November. Or is it common in Novembers? Had the incessant rain washed my memory away?

It was with pleasure that I thought I heard footsteps on my office stairs. Normally I’d dismiss such sounds as self-delusion — so few clients ever arrive without an appointment. And then there was the rain. I mean... could I really be hearing footfalls among the plops of those endless raindrops?

As it turned out, I could. There was a knock at my door. Even the most savage rain doesn’t do that. I dashed to respond. The last thing I wanted was for a prospective client to dissolve away.

The last thing I expected was to open the door and recognize the prospective client. My repeat clients always call, make appointments, even summon me to come to them. But then again, this prospective repeat client was not a normal kinda guy.

“LeBron,” I said. “Come in. Get out of the wet.”

I stood back but he didn’t cross the threshold. At first I thought he was being contrary, but then I saw it was hard for him to move at all. One arm hung loose at his side. His clothes were torn. He was standing askew.

“LeBron, what’s wrong?”

Faintly he said something. When I leaned forward and asked him to repeat it he said, “It’s Wolfgang now.”

It took awhile, but eventually I sat him in my Client’s Chair. He groaned with each step. I sat on my desk facing him. “How badly are you hurt?”

He didn’t respond.

“How badly are you hurt, Wolfgang? Should I call an ambulance?”

“We heal quickly.”

I didn’t like the way he held himself in my chair. I didn’t like the sound of his breathing. I didn’t like the sight of blood dripping onto my floor. I picked up the phone.

“No.”

“Yes.”

He passed out. I dialed 911.

2.

St. Riley’s emergency department was full, which surprised me. Ice and snow produce broken bones, but rain? What were they all here for? Near-drownings? Mold?

Whatever the answer, the emergency crew jumped Wolfgang to the head of the line. “So what happened to your friend?” asked the nurse when I followed him to a cubicle.

“I have no idea.”

“What’s his name?”

“Wolfgang.”

“Wolfgang,” the nurse said. “Interesting.” She turned to him. “Wolfgang, my name is Matty. Can you hear me?”

He made a sound. I couldn’t make out, like, a word, but Nurse Matty seemed happy with the noise itself. She turned back to me. “Has he lost consciousness since it happened?”

“He passed out when he arrived at my office, just before I called nine-one-one. Before that I don’t know.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know much, do you?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t.”

“Did you do this to him?”

“No.”

“You know that, do you?”

“He came to where I live, dragged himself up a flight of stairs, and knocked at my door. That was about...” I looked at my watch. “Fifty-seven minutes ago, when I called nine-one-one. I don’t know what happened before he got to me, where it happened, when it happened, or how he got to my place.”

“He’s... your boyfriend?”

“He’s not a friend of any description. Two months ago he hired me to do a job for him. I haven’t seen or spoken with him since.”

“That was September?”

“Yes. I finished the job for him in a day.”

“You’re not a plumber by any chance?”

“No. Sorry.”

She sighed. “So, why did he come to you?”

“Once you and your colleagues put Wolfgang Dumpty back together again, maybe he’ll tell me.”

“That’s his last name? Dumpty?”

“I have no idea what his last name is. When I worked for him he called himself ‘LeBron James.’ If he’s ‘Wolfgang’ now, chances are that the rest of his handle is Mozart. He has an interest in prodigies.”

“What’s all that supposed to mean?”

“He changes his name sometimes.”

“He changes his name?” She looked from me to him and back again. “Why?”

“I’d rather he told you himself.”

“Is he crazy? Is that it?”

“Personally, I think he’s unusually sane. But he does have some quirks.”

“You’re not helping me here.”

“I’m helping you as much as I can.”

“Does he have medical insurance? Wait, let me guess. You don’t know.”

“I can probably remember his address.”

“But he was rich enough to hire you for a day in September?”

“Yes.”

“Are you cheap?”

“I’m fabulously expensive and worth every penny.”

“A doctor will be here in a minute. I’m going to check his pockets now. They might have some ID that will help.”

She checked his pockets. They were empty. Which surprised me, because when he came to my office in September he was carrying a lot of cash. So maybe he’d been robbed.

“Go tell them what you can at the desk,” she said.

“And will you let me know when you find out what’s wrong with him?”

“You’re waiting around?”

“Yeah.”

“Even though you’re not a friend?”

“I give good customer aftercare.”

She made a face at me.

I left to deliver a second batch of “I don’t knows” at the reception desk.

3.

I expected to be left to my own devices in the waiting room for a long time but Nurse Matty came to get me less than a quarter of an hour after I picked a seat.

“You are still here.”

“Didn’t you expect me to be?”

“Not after we found your friend — no, your non-friend — has stab wounds.”

“That’s not nice.”

“No, it’s not.”

“And you thought I was the stabber and had made a run for it.”

“Look, can you come with me and go through what you know with our head of security?”

“While you wait for the cops to come and have me go through what I know with them?”

“Or hunt you down like a stray dog if you don’t stay. Your call,” she said with a bit of a smile.

“Why don’t you tell me something about Wolfgang’s prognosis.”

“The doctor found two wounds in his belly before I came to look for you. Neither looked deep or in a vital place, but they’ll take him up to an operating theater in a few minutes to make sure.”

“And has he said anything about what happened or who did it?”

“He’s been mumbling things. Maybe an old friend like you will be able to understand him better than I can.”

I followed Matty into the treatment labyrinth. I wasn’t sure what to tell the security people — or the cops. When I knew him, Wolfgang’s fickleness about names wasn’t his main peculiarity. That honor fell to his insistence that his father was an extraterrestrial.

But with me he behaved rationally and paid cash. By no means all the terrestrials I deal with do either.

The security guy was a woman who was taller, younger, and arguably more muscular than I am. She waited for me at the foot of Wolfgang’s bed, but as I was about to introduce myself, the patient spotted me and tried to sit up.

He said, “Albert.”

It was quiet but clear enough for Nurse Matty to ask, “Is that you?”

I nodded and went closer to his head.

“Four of them,” he whispered.

“Who were they?”

What he’d already said seemed to have left him exhausted. But then he made one last effort and said what sounded like “Terrorists...”

4.

Once the magic “t” word was passed on to the police, it wasn’t long before two officers in uniform homed in on me like I was the door to their future careers. By then, Wolfgang was in surgery.

I followed the cops to a visitors’ room, but it didn’t take long for me to repeat my collection of “I don’t knows”. However, it was long enough for Nurse Matty to stick her head in with an update. “Sorry to bother you, Officers,” she said, “but the surgeon upstairs believes that the two abdominal wounds were done with different knives.”

The uniforms looked at each other. I said, “How do you tell something like that?”

“Think about an ordinary knife,” she said. “One side sharp, one side blunt.”

“Okay.”

“And think about it being pressed through skin. Once the point goes in, one side of the wound is cut by the sharp edge but the other is just rubbed by the blunt one. Maybe torn open a little, but not cut. The result is that the two ends of the wound look completely different under magnification.”

“Sounds reasonable,” I said.

“Apparently one of the blades that cut him had two sharp edges, whereas the other had only one. That’s what he says. He also says that he can’t be completely certain without doing an autopsy.”

I leaned forward.

“But he doesn’t think it’ll come to that,” she said. “Oh. And they found another cut. On his back. Not as deep. He didn’t say if he thinks it was done by one of the original two knives.” She left.

“She says there were three wounds, not two?” the smaller of the two cops asked.

I nodded. Poor ol’ Wolfgang.

The smaller cop crossed something out in his notebook and wrote a correction.

The larger cop just said, “What’s he expect?” He was a big guy who looked the age and size of a high-school lineman.

“What do you mean?” his colleague asked.

“He said it was terrorists,” the lineman said. “If he’s going to mess with terrorists...” He looked from his colleague to me, for support.

I said, “If someone is attacked by terrorists, they’re responsible?” I shook my head. “You’re saying the nine-eleven people were messing with terrorists?”

“I just said...” the lineman began. But he stopped.

His colleague smiled and shook his head slowly.

I said nothing more. And at least they had treated me as a witness rather than a suspect, probably because Nurse Matty had stressed that I stayed around after Wolfgang came in.

But with the patient in surgery and the uniforms unable to think of more questions for me not to know the answers to, I began to consider leaving. It was then that a southside detective, Imberlain, showed up. So I got to do it all again.

By which time Matty had a further update. The surgeons had found a fourth cut. They were now putting Wolfgang’s spleen and liver back together. I decided to leave, at least for the time being.

I’d followed the ambulance in my car, so I had wheels. But instead of using them to go back home, I went to Wolfgang’s house.

Wolfgang had showed up at my office about eleven-thirty. Now it was nearly four, and still raining. I didn’t know when he’d been attacked by the “terrorists” but he’d been away from home for many hours.

When I got there, though, it didn’t seem like the house was empty. Through the rain I could see some lights on inside. But not behind curtained windows. I could see them through the wide-open door.

I parked and went to the porch. It was then that I discovered the door wasn’t wide open after all. It had been pulled off its hinges.

5.

I had no idea what Wolfgang had been doing in the two months since I’d last seen him. Then, he was hale and hearty — not a single stab wound. He had talked optimistically about the future, wanting to create a project to help the people he described as society’s “invisibles.”

And when I’d last visited his house, the interior was immaculate. Wolfgang — though then he was LeBron — had converted the conventional interior into a large space. He’d done all the work himself, having trained as a carpenter. As well, he’d painted pictures and designs on the walls. There wasn’t much furniture when I’d been there, just what a half-alien gentleman would use when living on his own.

But now, coming through the open doorway, I saw pieces of furniture everywhere. Most seemed once to have come from beds, and there were also mattresses ripped open.

This was clearly a matter for the police, though none were on the scene.

Which left me with a decision to make. I ought to call Imberlain, who’d given me his card. But my impulse was to call my daughter. She was a cop just off her probationary year. Sam didn’t work Southeast but Wolfgang’s house wasn’t far from the southwest sector where she did work. And she, at least, was used to me. She wouldn’t ask me endless questions about why I’d gone to Wolfgang’s house instead of going home.

“Why did you call me, Daddy?”

“You’re a cop. This is a police matter.”

“Call nine-one-one.”

“It isn’t an emergency. The house isn’t on fire. The front door’s been ripped off its hinges. The owner’s in hospital with four stab wounds. There are a few lights on, but I don’t know if anyone’s inside. I didn’t want to go in without somebody knowing where I am and what I’m doing.”

“So naturally you called me.”

“My daughter, the cop. Naturally.” I said, “I’m not asking you to drop whatever you’re doing and rush out here, but would you stay on the phone while I go in?”

“You shouldn’t go in. It’s a crime scene. You should call the police.”

“I did call the police. And what if someone’s in there, and injured?”

“Call three-two-seven-three-eight-one-one. That’s the number for non-emergencies.”

“I’m going in.” I was already inside the front door, but dwelling on details would be pedantic.

“Call the number, Daddy.”

“Just hang on while I look around.”

“Daddy!”

Slowly I walked into the middle of the open room. The room was chaos. A large television set had been tipped off its mounting. DVDs were scattered over a whole corner. In the kitchen area, large pans were on the floor. More and larger pans than I would have thought a man living alone would have. Mind you, there were pieces from a lot of beds — I counted what looked like half a dozen without trying. How many people were sleeping here? Had Wolfgang set up an open-plan B&B?

“Daddy?”

“I’m here, honey. Just hang on.”

“I’m hanging up.”

“Please don’t do that.”

Given the beds, I was interested in what I didn’t see. Which was evidence of people — their bags, their clothes... Such things might be underneath the wreckage, but I saw nothing on top.

I made my way to the back door. That was still on its hinges but it swung loose in the bits of breeze that passed through the house.

I didn’t get it.

“Daddy, I’m hanging up.”

I was about to say okay and that she should get back to whatever or whomever she was doing when I heard a whimper.

“Hang on. I hear something. Or someone.”

“Who?”

“I’m looking.”

I followed the sound. I found its source in the bathroom. It was a child. “It’s a little boy.”

The kid looked up sharply. He had tear-stained eyes. “I’m a girl,” he said.

“I mean a little girl.”

“How old?” Sam asked.

“About... seven.”

“I’m ten.”

“I mean ten. She’s about ten. And her name is Jane.”

“Nicole,” the girl said.

“I mean Nicole. And she’s resting in the bathroom because she just broke all the furniture here and destroyed the place.”

“I’m hiding,” Nicole said. “I was scared.”

6.

Sam arrived about half an hour later. She wasn’t wearing her uniform.

“Thanks for coming,” I said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

“I hope you didn’t disturb anything.”

“I had to think of Nicole.” Nicole looked up from a chair she was using as a table in the kitchen area. “She was hungry.”

“Thirsty,” Nicole said.

“And thirsty. I made her a glass of water.”

“You don’t make water,” Nicole said.

“And I made her cinnamon toast.” I stuck my tongue out at the child. She laughed. I turned to Sam. “Like I used to make for you.”

“Is that your wife?”

“My daughter.”

“Is that really your daughter?” Nicole asked.

“My lovely daughter, of whom I am double-proud.”

“Why double?”

“Proud of her as an outstanding police person and proud of her as a wonderful human being who has come through a lot of difficulties in her life.”

Nicole frowned. “She’s police?”

“Sure as shootin’.”

Sam drew me aside. “What do you know about her?” I shook my head. “Or about what happened?” I shrugged.

“I waited for you before asking questions,” I said.

Sam looked at her watch.

“Do you have to be somewhere?”

“I called this in on my way. Some uniforms should be here soon.” She knelt beside Nicole’s ‘table.’ “I’m Sam,” she said.

“That’s a boy’s name.”

“My father wanted a boy. He didn’t realize that girls are better.”

That pleased the child, who acknowledged it by taking a giant mouthful of the toast, as if no mere boy could eat so much at one time. She choked a little but got it down.

Sam said, “I need you to tell me what happened here, Nicole.”

“Men came and wanted money. Wolfgang wouldn’t give it to them, so they looked everywhere for it. Then they took him away.”

“Wolfgang?” Sam asked.

“He owns the house,” I said.

“The men broke everything,” Nicole said. “It wasn’t me.”

“Who else was here?”

“Two of the mothers.” Nicole thought. “Tara and... I can’t remember her name.”

“They were staying here?” Sam asked.

“We all stay here.”

“Why is that?”

“Our husbands and boyfriends aren’t good ones. They hit us.” Her face wrinkled. “Not me. But Mom. Harvey does that.”

“Is Harvey your dad?”

“No.” Her frown suggested that the less she had to do with Harvey the happier she’d be.

“How many women are staying here?” Sam asked.

Nicole counted on her fingers. “Seven.”

“And children?”

“Only me and a couple of babies.”

“Where are they all now?” Sam asked.

“Tara and the other one ran away when the men came. Two others... Janine and Stephanie... They came back later but they left. I think it was because their kids were about to get out of school.” She thought. “That’s Harry after the prince of England cause he’s got red hair, and Chloe.”

“They go to school?” Sam said. “I thought you said only babies stayed here.”

“Harry’s six and Chloe is seven. They’re such babies.”

“And,” Sam said, “where is your mother, Nicole?”

After toughing it out for a moment, Nicole’s face puckered up. She began to cry. “I don’t know. She left this morning and said I should wait here.”

“And you haven’t seen her or heard from her?”

“I told her I should have my own phone.”

“Why aren’t you at school?”

“The one I go to is too far away. Mom said we’d get a new one soon.”

“She wasn’t here when the men came?”

“No.”

“Do you know where she went? To work, maybe?”

“She used to work at Denny’s but then Harvey found her. I don’t know if she found another job yet.” Another pucker. “But she always comes back at night. I wait here for her.” She looked up at Sam. “Do you think Harvey found her again?”

“I don’t know,” Sam said quietly, “but I’ll try to find out. So Harvey wasn’t one of the men who took Wolfgang away?”

“I don’t know. They had masks on.”

“What kind of masks?”

“All over their faces, with holes for the eyes.”

“Did you recognize any of the men?”

She shook her head.

I said, “Do you know Harvey’s last name?”

“Peterson, I think.”

“Does Harvey know you and your mother live here now?”

“I don’t think so. But we’ve only been here...” She thought. “Three nights. But even if Harvey comes, Wolfgang promised he won’t get in.”

“How does he make sure of that?”

“He locks the door and he’s the only one who answers it.” The face puckered again. “But when the men came, they just pushed him out of the way. Wolfgang shouted for everyone to run and he jumped on one of the men, on his back.”

“You must have been scared, Nicole,” I said.

She nodded.

“But you didn’t leave with the other women?”

“Mom said to wait here.”

There was noise at the front of the house. We turned to look and saw two cops coming in through the aforementioned — but absent — door.

Sam put her arm around Nicole and took control.

I took flight.

7.

I headed back to the hospital. The answers to most of my questions were knocking around somewhere in Wolfgang’s head. Wolfgang, the half-alien formerly known as LeBron James. Wolfgang, the half-alien born in Santa Claus, Indiana, under the name of Curtis Nelson.

I did know some things.

As I drove I thought about what Nicole had told us and I wondered what kind of place Wolfgang was running. The Wolfgang I’d known didn’t seem a first-choice candidate for defender against angry terrorists, or boyfriends. He wasn’t big — just an average kind of guy. And when I knew him, he didn’t even have secure locks on his doors.

However, at that time he’d lived alone. Now he lived with seven women and three children. Maybe other things had changed too.

Once inside the hospital I was waylaid in the crowded waiting room. The rain hadn’t stopped and people continued to flood into Emergency. But I said magic words. I asked for Nurse Matty by name. Moments later she appeared before me.

“You’re back,” she said.

“Your powers of observation continue to dazzle.”

“I thought this Wolfgang guy wasn’t a friend.”

“He’s not. However I’ve just been to his house, where the cops are sifting through the wreckage of all the furniture.”

She leaned forward with her eyes wide open. “Wreckage?”

“There was also a ten-year-old girl hiding there who doesn’t know where her mother is.”

“This is Wolfgang’s... girlfriend?”

“Unlikely, but he’s the only person I can think of who might have an idea what’s up with Mom. And if he’s anywhere close to conversation-enabled, I need to see him.”

Nurse Matty tilted her head. “So, does that make you a cop?”

“No. But my daughter is.”

She blinked a couple of times. “Does anything you say make sense?”

“I’ve been asked that before.”

“I’m going to take you to see him anyway.”

“Thank you.”

“But you’ve got to promise not to stab him. We’ve sewn him up enough for one day. We found a fourth cut — in his shoulder from the back. Did I tell you that before?”

“Not where it was.”

She turned and we walked. “He’s in a recovery room.”

“Not intensive care, then?”

“He should be fine. Only one of the abdominal wounds was deep. There were perforations in his liver and pancreas, but not big ones. The shoulder will give him trouble for a long time, but your Wolfgang is a very lucky boy.”

“I wonder if he sees it that way yet.” After a couple of turns, I said, “Were the four wounds all with different knives? Could they tell?”

“I don’t know.”

“They didn’t find he has two hearts, by any chance, did they?”

She stopped abruptly and looked at me. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t mind me.”

“That he loves you but he loves somebody else too?”

“I know nothing whatever about his love life, if any.”

“I don’t know if he’s going to make much sense yet,” she said, “so you should be a perfect pair.”

“This whole situation doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

“No?”

“Like, why did he come to me?”

Outside some drawn curtains, Matty said, “Remember, people take different lengths of time to come around after a general anesthetic.” She opened a gap in the curtains and I went in.

8.

Wolfgang was not looking his best. The side of his head was bandaged — though I hadn’t heard about a head injury — and there were enough drips and tubes and machines to make Baron Münchhausen envious.

But he responded to the noise of my arrival and he moved to sit up while I pulled a chair close. “Mr. Albert Samson,” he said. “Greetings.”

“Mr. Wolfgang... would that be Mozart?”

“It would.” Not too spaced-out to smile.

“How’s it going?”

“I’ve felt better. But we heal quickly.”

“You told me that before. Do you remember?”

He thought. He didn’t remember.

“Have you healed enough to answer some questions?”

“I’ll try.”

“Your house is a wreck.”

“That’s not a question.”

“Why are seven women and three children living with you?”

“Not living.”

“They have — had — beds. They come home to your place after they finish work. What do you call it?”

“Visiting.”

“Silly me.”

“It wasn’t my plan.”

“Women, some with children, just started appearing at your door?”

“It began with one. I was walking around and I found this woman leaning against a fence. She’d been beaten up.”

“You found her?”

“About two miles from my house — in fact a little closer to yours than mine.”

“So you dialed nine-one-one?”

“She didn’t want me to do that.”

“Why not?”

“Do you know anything about the psychology of battered women?”

“Do you?”

“I’ve been reading up on it. Anyhow, I brought her home. I got her a bed. The idea was that she could stay for a few days, until she felt better.”

“When was this?”

“Second week in October.”

“And is she still visiting you?”

“Well, yes.”

“And she happened to have some buddies who also got beaten up?”

“I guess. Or some kind of word started spreading around. Women, and children...”

“But there are shelters in the city, Wolfgang. Organized places with much better facilities than just having beds scattered around an open space, all sharing one bathroom.”

“And one kitchen... I know. Dayspring, the Julian Center... I have a list and I tell them. And some have gone to them. But a lot don’t want to.”

“They all stayed on?”

“A lot have gone back to where they came from.” He shook his head sadly.

I said, “Back in September you talked about doing something for ‘invisible’ people.”

“This wasn’t what I meant. I want to do something to help people with problems. But now all I do is squeeze more beds in and try to keep them all from squabbling. I hate raised voices.”

He paused. I just waited. Any group of people crowded in together isn’t going to last as happy families. The Big Brother television shows made fortunes on that principle.

Wolfgang said, “I don’t want my house to be a refuge for anyone but me. And I’m sure the neighbors don’t like it. But if people are in trouble, how can I say no to them?”

“Practice makes perfect,” I said.

“But the best part...” He smiled with some life in his eyes.

“What?”

“Sometimes they hold my father’s handprint and they say it makes them feel better.”

I knew all about the “handprint,” supposedly left by his extraterrestrial father. In the real world, it was a piece of limestone with some grooves in it that looked like the fossilized veins of a leaf.

“They feel ‘better’?”

“It calms them. They say it makes them more positive about life and the future. Sometimes we sit in a circle and pass it around.”

“The psychological equivalent of homeopathy?”

“They tell me they feel something. I feel something. Maybe if you’d hold it you’d feel something too.”

“I guarantee I’d feel whatever a guy giving me a safe place to sleep and food to eat wanted me to feel.”

He tilted his head with a world-weary smile.

I said, “I didn’t see the stone in the wreckage.”

“It wasn’t out. I keep it in a safe place.”

“So the police in your house won’t be in danger of feeling better by stumbling across it.”

“Police?”

“You were cut up. Your house is a wreck. What do you expect?”

“I guess.”

“Wolfgang, what happened? You were stabbed four times, maybe with as many as four different knives. Did everyone want a piece? Like when the Brutus gang hit Julius Caesar?”

“They weren’t trying to kill me. They were trying to get me to tell them where I keep my money.”

“What happened?”

“Four men came to the door wearing masks. I wouldn’t let them in, but they broke the door down and grabbed me and said they wanted money.”

“So it was money rather than being connected to the women you were sheltering?”

“Yes and no.” He smiled.

“Will I get a straight answer if I whack that bandaged shoulder with a saline-drip bag?”

He didn’t like the sound of that.

“When I asked you before, you said it was terrorists.”

He shook his head.

“It’s what you told me,” I said.

“They had terrorists’ masks.”

“I only heard ‘terrorists.’ So we’re talking about their masks, not them?”

He nodded.

“Because I didn’t hear the apostrophe, the city of Indianapolis is on a rainbow alert.”

“They just wanted money. For some reason they thought I keep enough money around the place to be worth robbing me.”

“Do you keep a lot of money around?”

“You never know when you’re going to need cash. Especially with a lot of mouths to feed.”

“And beds to buy.” He nodded. “How many women have stayed in your house since October?”

“Maybe twenty. Twenty-five.”

“Do you keep records?”

“Of what?”

“Well, like their full names and Social Security numbers.”

“I’m extraterrestrial, not anal.”

“And do you get a lot of men coming to the door?”

“A few. Husbands and boyfriends. A violent girlfriend once too. Not often.”

“So what happened when the four guys in terrorists’ masks demanded your money?”

“I wouldn’t give it to them.”

“Why not?”

He smiled. “Guess?”

I stood up and threatened his shoulder. But as he winced I put it together. “You keep your money in the same place as the handprint?”

“Yes.” A smile.

“So you got yourself cut to pieces because you were protecting that damned chunk of rock.”

“Whoever told them about the money might have told them how much the handprint means to me. I couldn’t bear to lose it.”

So he’d rather die. I guess I just don’t understand extraterrestrials... “They wanted money. You wouldn’t give it to them. What happened then?”

“They showed me the knives, but when I still wouldn’t do it the leader cut me — not deep, but enough to draw blood. There were a couple of women in the house and that set them off screaming and they ran. The men started cutting up mattresses and couches and everything they could see that might have money in it. But eventually the leader said they should take me with them, so they bundled me into a car.”

“Right there, in front of your house?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“Quite large. Quite old. Light green or maybe light blue.”

Not a description to conjure up a car with, but the kind of neighborhood Wolfgang lived in would probably provide the police plenty of witnesses.

“Where did they take you?”

“They just drove around.”

“And continued to cut you in the car?”

“They didn’t know what else to do. But then...”

“What?”

“They gave up. My shoulder was bleeding so much the driver complained about the car upholstery and how they’d never be able to clean the DNA off it. He said he didn’t want to burn his car and they started arguing with each other.”

“Obviously, a gang of master criminals.”

“So they dumped me out, behind the Murphy building, and I recognized it.”

The old Murphy five-and-dime was across Virginia Avenue from my office. That was one question answered.

“So you came to me,” I said.

“I didn’t have a phone. They took the stuff in my pockets.”

“What was in them?”

“The usual things. Keys, wallet, phone.”

“Much money?”

“A couple of hundred.”

“The police are going to want to hear in detail what these guys said, anything you can remember about the car, and maybe names of the women staying with you.”

“You don’t want those things?”

“Are you hiring me?”

“Well, no. But I thought...”

“The cops probably won’t have much trouble tracking down your assailants. And when they find them they’ll have the advantage of the power of arrest.”

“I see.”

Which made me wonder something. “Wolfgang, could the guys who attacked you have been neighbors of yours?”

“Neighbors?” A deep frown.

“From families who don’t like the idea of your opening your house to waifs and strays.”

“Well...” He thought about it. “I don’t know who they were.”

“Did they say anything about your moving somewhere else, say?”

He shook his head. “It seemed to be all about the money. I’ve had some problems with my neighbors, but I can’t imagine...”

“Okay,” I said. Though there seemed to be quite a lot he couldn’t imagine, at one time or another. Why people didn’t just accept him as an extraterrestrial, for instance. “I do want something else.”

“What?”

“I found a little girl in your house. She was hiding and must have been there for hours.”

“Who?”

“Nicole? She’s ten.”

He nodded. “Elaine’s little girl.”

“Elaine hasn’t come back.”

“That’s surprising. She’s a very attentive mother.”

“Nicole was surprised too...”

9.

I had no reason to think that Elaine was in the kind of trouble that led her to court. But a woman desperate enough to run with her child from a boyfriend was not going to leave that kid unattended if she could help it.

The police would get onto it eventually, no doubt. But as long as they could drop the kid into the welfare system they’d focus first on the wreckage and the stabbings. That’s how police prioritize. Even those related to me by blood. Unless given a little guidance.

I had no specific reason to connect Elaine’s absence to the attack on Wolfgang, but I don’t believe in coincidence much more than I believe in extraterrestrials. One way or another there was a connection. And the only person I knew who could tell me more about Elaine was Nicole.

I called Sam.

“Where are you, Daddy?” she asked.

“Funny thing. I was about to ask you the same question.”

“A detective named Saul Imberlain wants to talk to you.”

“I already talked to him, at the hospital.”

“He wants to talk to you again, so I gave him your address and phone number.”

“I haven’t been home. But look, sweetie, I need to talk some more with the little girl, Nicole. Do you know where she is?”

“She’s still here.”

“Wolfgang’s house?”

“I’m waiting with her till someone from the Department of Child Services shows up. Which won’t be long.”

“So her mother hasn’t appeared?”

“No.”

“Just don’t let Nicole go anywhere before I get there, okay?”

“Why not?” I could hear her not saying she wasn’t on duty.

“Because I’m trying to find her mother and if I can do that it’ll save the poor kid some grief.”

After a moment Sam said, “Okay.”

What a good girl.

10.

Wolfgang’s house looked lit up like a roaring fire now that the light was fading. The cops seemed to have turned on every light in the place.

Which is not to say there weren’t a few lights aglow elsewhere along the street. Dim ones, with just enough illumination for neighbors to find their cigarettes and lemonade without making a mess as they watched the goings-on from behind their curtained windows. The neighbors were curious, but were they hostile?

A carpenter was at work on a temporary repair to the front door as I went in. Sam sat with Nicole in the kitchen area. A tall guy with a brown and gray beard stood behind them. Sam got up when she saw me. The tall guy pulled out a notebook.

Sam said, “This is Whitney Moser of DCS. Department of Child Services.”

Moser offered a hand.

I shook it. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Sam said, “Mr. Moser is going to take Nicole to where she can sleep tonight.”

“I need to ask her a few questions,” I said.

“And she needs to get settled for the night so she can get some sleep,” Moser said. “You can’t treat a child the way you might treat an adult.”

I crouched to be on a level with Nicole. Admittedly, she looked sleepy. It wasn’t all that late, but she’d had a shocking day. “Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

“Which would you rather do, Nicole?” I asked. “Get some sleep or help me find your mother?”

“Daddy!” Sam said as Moser said, “Honestly, Mr. Samson.”

“Help find Mom,” Nicole said. She was plenty awake now.

“I need you to tell me some things that no one but you knows.”

“Okay.”

“Do you know the address where you and your mom lived with Harvey?”

“Who’s Harvey?” I heard Moser whisper to Sam.

Nicole said, “3117 Hincot Street.”

“Good girl. And does your mom have any friends around there?”

“Laurie across the street.”

“Right across the street?”

She nodded. “With the orange door. Mom wanted one but Harvey said no.”

“Shall I get you an orange door for Christmas?”

She nodded, vigorously considering how tired she was.

“What school did you go to before you and your mom moved here?”

“Ninety-three.”

“Did you like it there?”

Nod.

“I bet they liked you there too.”

A little shrug. Then a nod.

“What’s your mom’s name?”

“Elaine.”

“Elaine what?”

“Warren.”

“And are she and Harvey married or is he your mom’s boyfriend?”

“No.”

“No?”

“He was her boyfriend. We don’t put up with him anymore.”

“And does your mom have any brothers or sisters that you know about?”

“Bobby. But he died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He did magic. He found an egg in my ear.”

I took a close look at one of her ears. “Yeah, I’d say there was room for an egg in there.”

She smiled as she rubbed the ear in question.

I said, “And how about your mom’s parents. Do you know them?”

A nod.

“Where do they live?”

“Crawfordsville.”

“Are their names Mr. and Mrs. Warren?”

A nod, but then uncertainty. “I guess.”

“Do you know their first names?”

“She’s Lily. He’s... um. Oh, he’s Wayne.”

“And do you like them?”

A nod.

“My grandmother used to make pies, just for me,” I said. “Does Lily do that for you?”

Shake of the head.

“Well, I’ll tell her to get her act together,” I said.

“Yeah!” Nicole said. Then she yawned.

I said, “I’m going to let you go to sleep now.”

Nicole looked from me to Moser and back to me. “I want to stay here, in case Mom comes home.”

“I’ll see what we can arrange.” I gestured to Sam to take over distracting the little girl.

I led the social worker a few feet away. “Look,” I said, “I know you want to get this all settled.”

“I want what’s best for Nicole,” Moser said.

“If I can find her mother in a reasonable amount of time, that would be best, wouldn’t it?”

“As long as she’s able to provide a safe environment.”

“Can you hang on here for a while?”

“Do you know where Elaine Warren is?”

I was tempted to say yes just to get the guy to agree, but I saw Nicole paying attention to us. “Not for sure, but I have an idea. And I’ll give finding her a damn good try. Plus, you’ve seen that Nicole doesn’t want to leave. I’d appreciate it if you’ll give me some time.”

Moser looked at his watch.

I said, “Think about all the paperwork you’ll save if I’m successful.”

Moser turned out to be one of the good ones.

11.

Whitney Moser began to gather bits of bed and bedding to make Nicole a place to sleep and I took Sam to the front porch. “He’s going to stay here with Nicole while I have a crack at finding Elaine.”

“Where is she?” Sam said.

“I have no idea.”

“Great.”

“But I might know someone who does.”

“I want to help, if I can, Daddy.”

“Officially or as a caring human being?”

“Can you stop being you for a moment and just tell me what you have in mind?”

I had a moment in which I visualized Wolfgang the extraterrestrial in his hospital bed, bandaged and receiving drips. My feeling of isolation from the world I inhabit can be as self-created as his. “Sorry. I’m going to try to become a better person.”

“Perhaps you can postpone that too,” she said, looking at her watch.

“I want to start by looking at 3117 Hincot Street. If I can find it.”

“Want to follow me and my GPS?”

Hincot was a short, dead-end street behind an old shopping center a couple of miles south of the city’s center. It didn’t appear to be a bad neighborhood, but then again, it didn’t appear much at all. The GPS had brought us to a dark stretch between two streetlights that didn’t work. Or that had been shot out. I’ve never owned a gun in all my years as a P.I. but for a moment I was glad Sam-the-cop was packing.

However, the only trouble we encountered was not being able to see the house numbers without our flashlights, what with the darkness and the rain.

But we found 3117, which turned out to be the top half of a duplex. Both halves were dark.

“What do you think?” Sam asked.

“I’m going to walk around back in case Harvey’s sitting in his kitchen drinking himself silly by candlelight. You could make a note of the license-plate numbers of the cars parked nearby along the street.”

“You think one of them is Harvey’s?”

There were only a few cars on the street, none parked in front of the duplex, so the chances weren’t good that they were relevant. But who knew?

My squishy stroll around the property did not reveal Harvey lit up round back. Or any evidence of occupation at all. There were also no cars on the alley pull-in space behind the house. Maybe everyone was out partying.

But when I returned to the front, Sam’s was not the only umbrella over the sidewalk. She was talking with a woman.

Sam said, “Daddy, this is Laurie. She lives—”

“Across the street and has an orange door.” I stepped forward with a hand extended. “Nicole told us about you. Once we checked to see whether Harvey was at home we were going to come over and see you.”

Laurie’s hand was soft and warm, both pleasant qualities to experience when you’re standing under an umbrella on a cold, rainy night.

“Are you a cop too?” Laurie asked.

Sam said, “Laurie came over because she thought we looked like we were police.”

“I leave the weighty burden of badge-carrying to the youngsters,” I said.

“I thought maybe you were here because you’d arrested Harvey and wanted to check out his house, that kind of thing,” Laurie said.

“Laurie,” I said, “why do you think Harvey’s done something to be arrested for?”

“Can you see my face?” she asked, and turned her head.

Sam lit Laurie’s face with her flashlight, revealing puffy bruising around her left ear and cuts that looked like scratches on her neck.

“Are you saying Harvey did that?” I asked.

“He certainly did.”

“Why?”

“He thought I knew where Elaine was, that I was holding out on him.”

“When was this?”

“This morning.”

“And did you report the assault to the police?”

She hesitated, maybe working out that her answer could be checked. “No.”

“Why not?”

“He said it would be my word against his, and that if I told the police he and his friends would come back and really hurt me.”

Sam said, “And do you know where Elaine is?”

Laurie hesitated over this too.

I said, “Elaine’s with you, isn’t she?”

“What?” both women said.

“Elaine is in your house right now,” I said. “Isn’t she? That’s why you couldn’t do anything that might result in Harvey coming back and coming in.”

Elaine Warren met us just inside the orange door. “Has Harvey been arrested?” she asked Laurie. “They’re cops, right? He’s been arrested, right?” She looked from me to Sam and back to Laurie. None of us spoke. “What? What?”

“The girl’s a cop,” Laurie said. “And no, Harvey hasn’t been arrested.”

“Why not?” Elaine was clearly agitated.

Laurie put her arms around her friend and made a face at us to say we shouldn’t upset her more.

I wasn’t that worried about upsetting her, but I said, “That’s a lovely daughter you have, Elaine.”

“What?” She looked up and pulled away from Laurie’s support.

“Nicole. Bright, funny. A real credit to you.”

“Is she all right?”

“She’s fine. We’ve left her with a guy from Child Services.”

“Child Services?” New panic. “But Wolfgang said he’d look after her,” Elaine said.

“Wolfgang is in the hospital, Mrs. Warren,” Sam said. “He was attacked by four men and stabbed several times.”

“No,” Elaine said, with disbelief. “No!” she cried.

I said, “So the Child Services guy is waiting with Nicole at Wolfgang’s. They both hope you’ll come back tonight to pick her up.”

“How can I do that?” Elaine was more agitated than ever. “Where could we go? If Harvey sees me, I’m a dead woman.”

“You think he’s still looking for you?” Sam said.

“Unless you people lock him away.”

“Elaine,” I said, “when we came in, why did you ask if Harvey’d been arrested?”

“Because he’s dangerous, and evil. Look what he did to Laurie.”

“But the police didn’t know what he did to Laurie.”

Elaine looked from me to Sam to Laurie. “I just thought...”

“What?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know. I need to get Nicole. But I can’t. If he sees me...”

“You think he’ll be waiting for you outside Wolfgang’s?”

She thought. “He could be. He probably is. Oh God!”

“Well, suppose we bring Nicole here for the time being.”

Sam looked at me uncertainly.

“Would you?” Elaine said. She sounded more hopeful than at any previous time in the conversation. “Will you? Please!”

12.

As soon as Laurie’s orange door closed behind us, Sam said, “Whitney Moser’s not going to let us bring Nicole here. Not with a dangerous guy on the loose who’s already threatened to come back to Laurie’s.”

“No?”

“I wouldn’t.”

I said nothing.

“Daddy?”

“Yes, dear?”

“What are you up to?”

“Tell me, if you were Harvey and you were looking for Elaine, where would you wait for her?”

Sam considered. “Wolfgang’s maybe.”

“Once you’ve seen the cop cars there? Given that Elaine all but told us that he was one of the gang that stabbed Wolfgang.”

“She did?”

“She expected him to be arrested, honey. Even Wolfgang the extraterrestrial doesn’t claim to read minds and if he can’t, then the police sure can’t. Arrested for what, since Laurie didn’t report him?”

“If he was part of that,” Sam said, “then he wouldn’t hang around while the cop cars were there.”

“So what would be your second choice as a place to wait for Elaine?”

“Well,” Sam said, “here, I guess. If he thinks Laurie is helping her.”

“And tell me, did you get a chance to look at the cars parked along the street?”

“Yes. But I haven’t called them in.”

I said, “Were the windows of any of the cars fogged up with condensation?”

13.

Sam and I got in our cars and drove away.

Around the corner and then another block for luck. Sam called for a couple of squad cars to join her, stressing that they must do it quietly and must avoid Hincot Street.

The rain might have brought a lot of people out to the ER but it seemed to have kept most of Indy’s malfeasors at home. Patrolling cops were bored. The call for two cars brought five.

Under Sam’s guidance, a couple of them drove up the alley behind 3117 with their lights out. Once they were in place at the end of the street, Sam and the other patrol cars filled the street from its open end.

I walked back to the corner to watch. While I waited for Sam to give the go, a gust of wind blew my umbrella inside out. Then another gust righted it, but left me with a droopy corner — the umbrella would never be the same again. Was it a metaphor for life? We survive our trials but we’re never quite the same?

Suddenly the six cars leapt into action, lighting the street with head, spot, and blue-revolving lights. Moments later, Harvey’s car was surrounded with guns brandished by cops in raincoats. I saw his car’s door open a crack. The first thing out was his hands, held high and in plain sight. Once he was standing by the car, even from a distance he looked like he didn’t know what had hit him.

I wondered if Harvey figured that his windows being steamed up would make him inconspicuous because no one could see him in the car. Wrong. His being the only car on the street with opaque windows made it more conspicuous, not less. Poor Harvey. Not one of nature’s deep thinkers, at a guess.

Elaine didn’t think Harvey had a gun, but in Indiana you can never be sure. Hence the aggressive posture of the bored police officers. As it turned out, he was as unarmed as he was unaware. They didn’t even find his knife.

While the assembled representatives of law enforcement secured him ready for transfer downtown, I crossed and went back to Laurie’s orange door, my umbrella’s new flap flapping in the wind.

14.

Whitney Moser was sitting on a kitchen chair, concentrating on his phone. Either he was dealing with weighty matters of child protection or he was playing on one of his game apps. Nicole was asleep at his feet, curled up on a nest of mattress leftovers.

Elaine followed me into the house, but as soon as she saw Nicole she rushed to her and took her in her arms.

“Mom?” Nicole said as she rubbed her eyes and opened them.

It would have broken my heart if she’d woken up like that for anybody else.

Moser and I stepped away and I explained that the abusive boyfriend was now in custody, that Elaine and Nicole could go safely to the duplex where they’d been living or stay with a friend across the street.

“That’s just as well,” Moser said, “because I couldn’t allow them to stay on here.”

I thought he meant because of the lack of whole beds but that wasn’t it.

“The guy who owns this place,” Moser said, “what’s his name?”

“Wolfgang. I’m not sure what his full name is.” By now he might have changed it again, to that of someone else whose precociousness he suspected of identifying a fellow extraterrestrial.

“Well, I’ve checked the address and he doesn’t have any of the permits he needs to run a refuge, especially one with children.”

“I don’t think Wolfgang intended this place to become anything formal. He just took in people who asked him for help.”

“Well, he’ll have to learn to say no,” Moser said, “unless he goes through the authorization procedure. But even if he gets personal clearance, his chances of being approved for one big open-plan room...”

“He means well,” I said. “I can’t say more than that.”

Moser gave me a card. “Have him get in touch with me if he wants to talk about his options.”

I took the card.

But my lack of enthusiasm for bureaucracy’s facility for stifling generosity must have shown because Moser said, “I’m not one of the bad guys, Mr. Samson.”

“I worked that out before,” I said.

“It’s just the way things are.”

15.

I didn’t return to the hospital until the morning. The heavy rain had stopped at last. Impenetrably gray skies were dropping no more than a drizzle.

Sam met me there, curious to see the guy who was at the center of the action. And I was pleased to see that Nurse Matty was on duty again. Or was it still? “Don’t you ever get time off?” I asked her.

“I volunteered for a double,” she said, “which tells you something about my private life.”

“It tells me you’re a wonderful, caring person who’s probably stockpiling her money in order to open a charitable foundation.”

“Me and Bill Gates.” She eyed Sam up. “So, who’s your friend? Or is this a non-friend too?”

“She is, indeed, a friend. As well as being my daughter.”

“The cop?”

“Yes.”

“And she’s your daughter?” Matty tilted her head. “Her mother must be very very beautiful.”

I declined to respond. “How’s the patient?” I asked.

“He’s making me a little uncomfortable, to tell the truth.”

“Because of his endless demands for attention and enhanced comforts?”

“Cut up like he is, he should be restless and trying to get more pain relief out of us. But instead he just lies there.”

“And that’s a problem for you?”

“He watches everyone come and go, and then he smiles a little smile whenever someone takes his blood pressure or fluffs up his pillows.”

“And says thank you, I bet.”

“Every time. It’s creeping me out. I’ll be glad when we get a normal patient back in that bed.”

“Matty, have you had a personal chat with him?”

“Personal? Is that man code for something I don’t understand?”

“Asked him about himself, his family?”

“No.” She peered at me. “Why?”

“Well, don’t, if what you like is normal.”

“Okay, now you’re creeping me out too.” She shook her head. “You know where he is.”

“Yeah.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said to Sam and went about her business.

I led Sam to my non-friend.

Wolfgang was not asleep. He gave us a little smile when we came in. “Albert,” he said. “And a stranger.” He peered at Sam. “Are you two related? Daughter?”

“Thanks for acknowledging my genes,” I said. “This is Sam.”

“How do you do, Sam.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr.... Mozart?”

“Just call me Wolfgang.” He turned to me. “I thought you told me your daughter is a police officer.”

“She is.”

He stared at her. “Okay, I can see it now. But there’s something... more. You’re an unusual person, Ms. Samson.”

“Is that unusual-good or just unusual-different?” Sam asked.

“Good. Definitely good. You will do things in your life.”

“No need to butter her up. She’s not here to arrest you,” I said.

“We’ll see how it goes,” Sam said. “No promises.”

I said, “They’re complaining about you out there. They say you should be trying to get more morphine out of them.”

“It’s only pain,” Wolfgang said.

“There have been developments since I was here yesterday.”

“Do I want to know?”

“Probably not, but there will be consequences for you.” I sat beside Sam to tell the story of the previous evening. As it went on, Wolfgang looked increasingly weary. Weary and unbelieving.

“Elaine is responsible for what happened?”

“I don’t know how the law will interpret it, but hers was the big bang from which the rest of yesterday’s universe followed.”

“But why? I took her in. I fed her. Her and her child.”

“It was about her, Wolfgang, not you.”

He absorbed this. “Okay. I can see that. I’m thinking narrowly.”

“She was desperate to get rid of her boyfriend. She never intended for anyone to get hurt. And, like yourself, she hasn’t had a good experience with the police.”

He glanced at Sam, who said, “So she went to her best friend. She got the friend to ask Harvey, the boyfriend, what it would take to get him to leave Elaine alone once and for all. Harvey said money.”

Wolfgang shook his head slowly, sad about the way human nature plays out. Maybe he was wishing his dad had taken him along to Planet Other.

“So Elaine and the friend hatched up a plan,” I said. “The friend told Harvey that you keep a lot of money around the house. Elaine thought he’d go to your place alone and that between you and the women there you’d subdue him and he’d be arrested.”

I paused while Wolfgang revisited what had happened in his house the previous day. “When I saw the four masked men,” he said, “I shouted for all the women to get out. Everyone ran out the back door.”

Except for Nicole. I said, “Maybe Harvey smelled some kind of rat when Elaine’s friend became cooperative. But for whatever reason he recruited some friends of his own for the visit to your house. Friends willing to rough you up for some easy money.”

“All wearing those terrorists’ masks.” Wolfgang shook his head, looking wearier and wearier.

Sam said, “We have Harvey in custody, Mr. Mozart. I hear that he gave up the rest of the ‘terrorists’ in about five seconds.”

“They’re sad, silly men,” Wolfgang said. “I’ve been thinking about how they acted when they had me in their car. They were childish and squabbly. And if they needed money so badly, they should just have asked. I’d have given them some.”

“That’s not how things are expected to work on Planet Earth,” I said. “And chances are it was greed rather than need anyway. For which they’ll all go down, for assault with deadly weapons.”

“I won’t press charges.”

“What?”

“I won’t testify against them. I should have talked more with Elaine. I should have learned more about her problems. I should have worked out some way to help her. I could have talked with this Harvey.”

“Had him hold your stone and let it make him see the light?”

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?”

“I’d say you are otherworldly, but you’d just agree with me,” I said.

Sam said, “Your refusal to testify won’t keep them from being charged, Mr. Mozart. They’ll testify against each other. The medical records here will establish the injuries. They’ll plead out. And they will go to jail. They’re dangerous and they need to be prevented from hurting more innocent people.”

I said, “Why wouldn’t you help punish idiots who are willing to stab people to get a few bucks?”

“Because jail is not the answer. We have a higher percentage of our population in jail than any other country in the world and things like this still happen.”

“You could ask the judge to give them twenty-five years of community service.”

Wolfgang sat up in his bed. “I want to talk to them.” He looked at me but then settled on Sam. “Can you make that happen, Officer Samson? I need to talk to them. All of them.”

16.

Sam and I stood in the parking lot before we went our separate ways. “Weird guy, your friend Wolfgang,” she said.

“He’s not my friend.”

“Why does he want to talk to Harvey and the other idiots?”

“I think he believes he can spread peace on earth, one peace at a time.”

“Is he a megalomaniac?”

“He’s got this piece of limestone that he thinks has his extraterrestrial father’s handprint on it. Wolfgang believes that people who touch the stone feel better. Maybe even become better people.”

“If they do let him talk to Harvey,” Sam said, “they won’t let him take a lump of stone into the interview room. They’d be afraid your Wolfgang would just whack him on the head with it.”

“That’d make us feel better, in his place,” I said. “But then again you and I are not extraterrestrials.”

“I suppose I should be thankful that you’re human, no matter what Mom says.”

“She was never that beautiful,” I said. “It was her brains I went for. But then they ran out.”

“Why didn’t you tell Wolfgang that he can’t run his house as a refuge anymore?”

“Maybe he’ll pass his handprint around Children’s Services and they’ll sign him up and everyone will live happily ever after.”

“You think?”

“With him, I don’t know what to think,” I said. “Will Elaine face charges?”

“She and Laurie didn’t tell Harvey ‘Go stab,’ but they provided information knowing it was likely to result in a felony crime. Most judges won’t like that much, especially in an election year.”

“Maybe Wolfgang will want to fund a high-priced lawyer for her.”

“Has he got a lot of money?”

“I have no idea.”

“Will you go back in there now and tell him that Elaine might be in trouble?”

“Do you think I should?” I said.

“Maybe for Nicole,” Sam said.

“Yeah, all right. Good kid, isn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Like you,” I said. And she didn’t even smack me for calling her a kid.

Copyright © 2012 by Michael Z. Lewin

Content

Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 140, No. 5. Whole No. 855, November 2012

The Charles Dickens Mystery by W. Edward Blain

The Jury Box by Jon L. Breen

Gone Fishing by Jim Davis

Cover Them with Flowers by Marilyn Todd

Beauty by Rubem Fonseca

The Closet by Jenny Milchman

Mischief in Mesopotamia by Dana Cameron

The Void It Often Brings with It by Tom Piccirilli

Lost Cause by N. J. Cooper

The Suitcase by Edward D. Hoch

Good Intentions by Michael Z. Lewin

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