Silver Bullets

by Douglas Greene et al.

  “What’s a genre?” Foley asked.

  “Please, don’t embarrass me. My point is, we know you’re going to have multiple suspects and esoteric clues, and we’ll go along with you happily as readers, just so long as you don’t make any serious errors in police procedure. That’s when you’ll lose us. And that’s what we came to talk about tonight. Now does anybody have any questions?”

  A hand shot up in the first row. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Tell us about the Fitzgerald case.”

  Berwanger turned to his partner, with a puzzled expression. “Why would they want to know about the Fitzgerald case?”

  Foley shrugged. “It was kind of interesting.”

  “But not at all typical of our work.” He sighed with exaggerated resignation. “Still, if that’s what you want, I’ll give you a rundown on the Fitzgerald case. Bernard Fitzgerald was CEO of his own software company and an extremely wealthy man. Early in the company’s history, he pretty much quit coming to the office, working almost entirely from home. He managed to keep full control of every aspect of his operation by computer or telephone. The first week in July a couple of years ago, he was found murdered in his home office at about five o’clock in the afternoon. His housekeeper, who had been out shopping, found him seated at his desk in front of his computer screen. The latest company sales graph, covering the last year, was kind of lying on the computer keyboard, as if he’d been studying it when he died. There was a gaping hole in his forehead, which proved to be made by a slug from a .45-caliber handgun. The weapon was not on the scene. “Our crime scene team were able to gather several pieces of physical evidence. When a recently fired weapon was found later in the home of our suspect, technicians were able to match the slug found in Mr. Fitzgerald with others test fired from that same weapon through markings on the slug picked up on its trip through the bore of the gun. The tech folks call these lands and grooves, sort of like stalactites and stalagmites. The suspect was also tested for GSR—that’s Gun Shot Residue—and could be shown to have fired a gun. Unless you’re writing a historical, never have your fictional cops do a paraffin test—that went out with rubber hoses—and whatever you do, don’t have your cop pick up the weapon with a pencil stuck in the barrel. That could mess up the lands and grooves and make future ballistic testing pointless. It’d be as bad as having your cops stop for doughnuts every other chapter.”

  “I like doughnuts,” Foley said.

  Berwanger looked at his partner pityingly and continued. “While our suspect had cleaned up after committing the crime, we were able to find microscopic blood residue on the suspect’s clothing that matched that of the victim. To summarize, by the time we went to trial in the Fitzgerald case, the proper suspect had been brought to book by solid routine police work. Are there any more questions?”

  Several hands were in the air, and two of the audience spoke at once.

  “Where was the whodunit?”

  “What was the dying message?”

  Berwanger sighed in comic exasperation. “That won’t help you keep your police procedure authentic, and that’s what we’re here for.”

  “Better tell ‘em the whole story,” Foley said, “or they’ll never invite us again.”

  “Okay, okay, if you insist. The last message his secretary got from Fitzgerald, at four in the afternoon, was that he had an appointment with a relative, and so would be out of touch for a while. He didn’t name the relative but said something really strange. He said it was somebody who ran through the calendar. The secretary told us he often made funny little remarks like that, so it was nothing out of the ordinary. He liked to pull people’s chains over unimportant things, though if anything was really important he’d make it crystal clear. He was a puzzle fan, she said, did the newspaper crossword every morning before he did anything else.

  “Now, like I said, Fitzgerald was very, very rich, but he had no children of his own and no living siblings. He did have two nieces and two nephews who would share equally in the bulk of his estate when he kicked off. Naturally, they all had an obvious motive and were the first people we wanted to check out.” Berwanger turned to his partner. “Okay, Foley, you’ve been standing there so smug, kibitzing and watching your partner sweat. Here’s where you get to go to work.” He turned back to the audience. “My partner’s quite an actor. He can do good cop or bad cop with a minimum of preparation, and he does the greatest drag act you ever saw at the annual Bluecoat Follies. In the interrogations to follow, I will be me, and Foley will take the role of the person being interrogated.”

  Berwanger cleared his throat. “We first visited the victim’s nephew Barry. No, not Barry Fitzgerald, Barry Montgomery, the son of one of Fitzgerald’s sisters.” He turned to Foley. “You have a very nice place here, Mr. Montgomery.”

  “Why, thank you, Officer. I certainly like it.” Foley had transformed himself into a smiling, ingratiating go-getter bristling with nervous energy.

  “When did you last speak with your uncle?”

  “Oh, must have been last Christmas. We were on good terms, but we weren’t often in touch.”

  “What sort of work do you do, Mr. Montgomery?”

  “I’m in advertising. Account executive with Weedham and Reap, here in the city.”

  “You’ve been pretty successful at it?”

  “I think so. Have you seen the ads for Happy Rest Funeral Park?

  Their slogan, ‘Quality of Life, Even in Death’? That’s one of mine.”

  “You must be doing pretty well. Is that an original Andy Warhol on your wall?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Have much debt?”

  “Well, some, like anybody else these days. Ex-wife, you know how that is.”

  “Actually, I don’t. So were you at your office Thursday afternoon?”

  “No, I had the day off. I was at the movies all day.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Gee, I don’t know.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “I was alone, and I didn’t see anybody I knew. I can show you my ticket stub.”

  Foley pantomimed passing something to Berwanger, who examined it. “This shows you went to see Million Dollar Baby at 12:30 p.m. Figure ten minutes for trailers. That picture runs maybe two hours. You’re out well before 3 o’clock, and your uncle wasn’t killed until after 4.”

  “I didn’t leave the movie theatre until 5:30.”

  “But your ticket says—”

  “Look, after the first movie, I went in to see another one, okay?”

  “And did you buy a ticket for that one?”

  “Of course not. Look, you know what these multiplexes are like. They never check which movie you bought a ticket for. It’s no big deal to sneak into a second movie or even a third. They don’t care. They make all their money off concessions anyway.”

  “I guess that’s right. So you had something to eat at the movie?”

  “Hell, no. I’m not paying those prices.”

  “Mr. Montgomery, your uncle told his secretary he had an appointment with a relative that ran through the calendar. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Well, I guess we all run through the calendar, don’t we? Working our tails off from January to December? But it has no special meaning to me. You might check out my cousin Vera, though. You’ll enjoy it, even if it’s a dead end.”

  At that point, Detective Foley, without donning any drag, changed from hyperactive adman to indignant young woman very conscious of her beauty.

  “Miss Willing, to begin with I have to ask: is that your real name?”

  “Yes, it’s my real name, Vera Willing, and I know what you’re getting at. You think I’m some kind of sex pro, like a stripper or porno actress or prostitute or something. Well, I’m not. I’m really a very modest person. Taking off my clothes for a magazine layout in Pentup was an honor, a well-paid compliment to me and my body, but it was a one-time thing. Do you realize how many women from all walks of life have
posed for Pentup? And I assure you it was done in extremely good taste. It was very classy.”

  “To get to the point, at the time your uncle died, he said he had an appointment with a relative who ran through the calendar. We’ve been trying to figure out what that means, and someone suggested that you were Miss January two years ago in Pentup.”

  “Who suggested that? Which one of my worthless cousins suggested that to you?”

  “Does it matter which one?”

  “It might. If somebody is trying to throw suspicion on other people, it could mean they’re trying to throw suspicion off themselves, couldn’t it? I’ve read a few books, you know. But let me say two things to that accusation. Number one, I didn’t have to make an appointment to talk to Uncle Barney. He was crazy about me, and I could just drop in and talk to him any time I wanted. Number two, I was Miss January in Pentup, in the issue, yeah, and then I was Miss January again in their calendar. But I was only January and I’ve never done another Pentup Pin-up, and I’ve never done another calendar or another girl of the month in any other magazine. So having my toe in January isn’t exactly running through the calendar, now is it?”

  “Where were you Thursday afternoon?”

  “Working, all right?”

  “Working where?”

  “At home. I’m an artist. I was painting a picture.”

  “Of what?”

  “There’s no easy answer to that. It’s an abstract. I could show you.”

  “Wouldn’t prove anything. Did anyone see you?”

  “No.”

  “If your uncle’s remark about running through the calendar didn’t refer to you, who could it have referred to?”

  “You might talk to my sister Esther, the judge.” Detective Foley registered sibling resentment. “She runs through a court calendar every day of her life!”

  Berwanger turned back to the audience. “That sent us to the chambers of Judge Esther Willing at the Superior Court building.”

  Changing persona again, Foley spoke before he was asked a question. “Let me tell you officers something: I believe the rights of a citizen are sacred. If you want a search warrant, you’d better have a good reason. I wasn’t elected to this office so I could be a rubber stamp on a police fishing expedition. Is that clear?”

  “Quite clear, Your Honor. But we’re not here to request a warrant.

  It’s about your uncle’s death.”

  “Oh, that. I had very little to do with my uncle, but of course I shall answer your questions fully and completely.”

  “Where were you the afternoon he was killed?”

  “In court.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “Oh, the bailiff, the court reporter, twelve jurors, four alternates, a defendant, a bunch of lawyers for both sides, a few cranks who come to watch the show every day. That’s about all.”

  Berwanger turned to the audience. “In short, Judge Willing was the only relative with an apparently solid alibi, but we weren’t through with her.” He turned back to Foley. “Your Honor, before your uncle died, he referred to meeting with a relative who ran through the calendar. That could refer to the court calendar, couldn’t it?”

  “I suppose it could, but detectives, I do not run through the calendar. Ask anyone in this building if I am known for undue haste in fulfilling my duties. They will tell you just the opposite is the case, and some of them find my tendency to deliberation rather annoying. Now, I do have to get back to the courtroom. Is there anything else?”

  “Can you imagine what else your uncle might have meant?”

  She shook her head. “As an officer of the court, I would help you if I could. But as a member of the family, I’m glad that I can’t.”

  “There was one more relative to see,” Berwanger said, “Jason Fitzgerald.” He turned back to Detective Foley, who had cast off his feminine mannerisms. “Mr. Fitzgerald, you work in radio, is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Foley had deepened his voice an octave to sound like a radio person.

  “Does it pay well?”

  “If you’re Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh maybe. For most of us, it’s about on a par with being a grocery store manager.”

  “At least you’re not at box boy level.”

  “Well, I was when I started out. I’ve done it all on radio, at every kind of station. Commercial, non-commercial. Every kind of assignment, too. News, sports, interviews, telephone talk. Mostly playing music, though—rock, country-western, jazz, classical, you name it. I enjoy it. My wants are simple.”

  “Ever do any TV?”

  He shook his head. “Face for radio, as they say.”

  “Can you tell us where you were the afternoon your uncle was killed?”

  “Well, let’s see. My on-air shift ended at noon. I had a little lunch at a place near the station. They know me there, but I left by two o’clock. I came home and meditated.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Only if you have a way of probing my quest for enlightenment. I was alone the whole time. Nobody called, or if anybody did, I’d let the answering machine take it.”

  “Any idea what your uncle’s comment about running through the calendar meant?”

  “Not a clue.”

  Berwanger turned back to the audience. “But it was a clue. Foley and I were sure of that. After interviewing them all, we returned to the crime scene and took another look at something that was found right smack in the middle of Fitzgerald’s desk at the time he died and I noticed something—”

  “I noticed it,” Foley said.

  “Well, maybe you noticed it, but I interpreted it.”

  “Once I noticed it, interpreting it was easy.”

  Berwanger clenched his teeth as if submerging a caustic remark. “Working in tandem as a good partnership should, we noticed Fitzgerald’s sales graph. It had the dollar business levels along the side.

  “You guys are mystery writers,” Foley said. “You should be able to get this.”

  “It’s a challenge to the sitter,” Berwanger said. “If you have something to write with and on—and as writers, you should—just put the first letter of each month beginning with J for July, A for August, and so forth, and see what you get.”

  Most of the writers in the room followed instructions, and most of them had the following on their pads: JASONDJFMAMJ.

  “Anybody get it?”

  “Yeah,” said a booming voice from the front row. “His nephew Jason was a disc jockey, that is a DJ, and he worked on all kinds of radio stations, so he probably worked at both FM and AM stations. So Jason and his credits run right through the calendar!”

  “That’s it. He was the suspect we zeroed in on, and he was the one tried and convicted for his uncle’s murder.”

  “But what does that last J mean?”

  “Justice?” Foley suggested.

  Berwanger shook his head. “In fiction, maybe you’d have to explain that last J. We didn’t. Once we got a search warrant for Jason’s apartment, we found the weapon and it wasn’t too late to get him tested for GSR. In the end, we had more evidence than we needed, just the kind of foren sic stuff juries demand these days if you expect them to convict. And we wrapped the thing up only a day after the murder was committed through good sound dogged police work. So, as you can see, that wasn’t really much like a fictional murder case at all.”

  “Sounds like one to me,” Foley said.

  “No, not a bit. If it were fiction, the killer had to be the judge. She was the only one with a perfect alibi, right?”

  A hand was up. “Yes, sir.”

  “Detective Berwanger, did you guys make that one up?”

  “Heck, no. We wouldn’t think of encroaching on your territory. You guys make up the stories. We just protect and serve.”

  THE FLYING FIEND

  by Edward D. Hoch

  Edward D. Hoch, former President of the Mystery Writers of America, Edgar Winner, and Grand Master, was the most imaginative –
and prolific – author of mystery short stories. He wrote almost 1000 of them, appeared in every issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine from 1973 until his death in 2008, and wrote about many series characters – Dr. Sam Hawthorne (the New England small town doctor who specializes in impossible crimes, Nick Velvet (the crook who steals only worthless items), Simon Ark (the Coptic priest who may have lived 2000 years), Jeffery Rand (the spy who specializes in “Concealed Communications”), Michael Vlado (the Roma sleuth), Ben Snow (the cowboy detective who is often thought to be Billy the Kid) and many others. Ed was a friend of Crippen & Landru from its inception, and among our earliest publications was Ed’s Diagnosis: Impossible, the first volume of Sam Hawthorne stories. Since then, Crippen & Landru has been privileged to publish eight more collections of Ed’s stories.

  Ed wrote five stories about Sir Gideon Parrot, a gentle commentary on the tropes of the golden Age detective story. Among them is “The Lady of the Impossible.”

  I’ve been asked to record another exploit of my friend Sir Gideon Parrot, and it seems to me I must at last reveal certain aspects of the Flying Fiend affair, a case that baffled the best detective minds of two nations.

  One of my clients was a large West Coast corporation that maintained a vacation retreat for executives on a small island in the Strait of Georgia, off the northwest coast of Washington State. It was a picturesque region and I’d often wanted to return there after sitting in on a company meeting at the island a few years back. When one of the executives suggested that I might vacation there for a week in August free of charge, I seized the opportunity. I didn’t even question him when he suggested I might bring my old friend Sir Gideon Parrot along for the trip.

  I’d never been off on vacation with Gideon before but he readily accepted my invitation. We flew across the country to Seattle and hired a boat to take us up through the inlets and straits to the cluster of islands that sat on the American-Canadian border at this point. Some, like San Juan Island, were large enough to have a national historical park. Others, like the company’s Cracker Island, were large enough for only a few buildings and a dozen acres of wooded trails.