The World's Finest Mystery...

by Ed Gorman

  "Did they? Really." Mrs. Vanderhoop blinks thoughtfully to herself. "Do you know, if it wasn't you telling me, Mr. Bohannon, I wouldn't believe that. Dolores Combs despised Mr. Liebowitz. And once her sister Rose took sick, she wouldn't let Mary Beth near him."

  * * *

  Bohannon circles the house, a sprawling redwood place with windows that stare at the ocean. It's isolated on its hill, land once owned by Henry Madison III. Big pines shelter it. Nobody is around. Cars? The garage doors are closed. He parks his green pickup truck, gets out, and looks down the road. Only a short walk to the beach, only another short walk to Cedric Lubowitz's motel room. You could do it in ten minutes. He hikes up through the trees around the back of the house, where he spots the structure he wants and goes toward it, waiting for some reaction if he's been seen. He doesn't hear or see any. The enclosure of redwood plank fencing he has had his eye on has a gate, but it isn't locked. He works the latch quietly, opens the gate, and sees inside what he expected. Trash barrels. Two are filled with yard trimmings, and their lids are propped against the enclosure, but the third has its lid in place. Heart beginning to beat fast, he pries the lid off. Inside is a large green plastic bag. He undoes the wire twist that closes it, pulls the bag open, reaches inside, and a voice behind him says: "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

  He turns. It's Gerard. He looks stern.

  Bohannon says, "Collecting trash? Is that against the law?"

  "You haven't got a license to collect trash," Gerard says. "What you are doing is breaking and entering, conducting a search of private property without a warrant."

  Bohannon pulls a white cableknit sweater out of the bag and holds it up. It has bloodstains on it. And next, a brand new pair of women's jeans, also splashed with blood. "Hundred to one," he says to Gerard, "those will match Cedric Lubowitz's blood type. And his DNA." He brings out a pair of expensive low-heeled women's walking shoes. Turns the soles up. "More of same off the road." With a fingernail, he pries out scraps of oak and eucalyptus leaves, pine needles. "Stuff like this lay all around the body." He looks at Gerard, whose face is expressionless. "What you're saying is that I've made this inadmissible evidence."

  "It would be," Gerard answers, "except when I learned you were out and around, talking to prisoners behind my back, checking out the tires on Lubowitz's car at the impound, generally acting your usual hot-dog self, I got a warrant." He pulls the folded paper from inside his uniform jacket. He edges Bohannon aside and rummages in the trash bag for himself. "The wallet," he says, and holds it up.

  "Isn't it disgusting," Bohannon says, "how right I always am?"

  Gerard starts off. "Bring that stuff. Let's go arrest her."

  He presses a bell button on the wide, redwood-beamed porch. Handsome stained glass frames the doorway. The motif is California wildflowers. Yellow poppies, blue lupine, white yucca. Suddenly, the door flies open, and Dolores Combs stands there angry, a big-boned woman, white hair cropped handsomely. Arty women in Settlers Cove run to sweatshirts, but not she. A shirtwaist of brown shantung. Tailored slacks. A jade necklace. From Gump's, probably.

  "I warned you," she begins. "It's you, Lieutenant Gerard. Forgive me. I thought it was more news people. They've been pestering the life out of us."

  "Morning," Gerard says. "We're here about the death of your friend Cedric Lubowitz. This is Hack Bohannon, investigator for the public defender's office."

  She glares at Bohannon. "You're defending that animal Belcher?"

  Bohannon tugs his hat brim. "Ma'am."

  "These things belong to you?" Gerard takes sweater, jeans, and shoes from Bohannon and holds them out to her. She blinks at them and turns pale. "N-no. Certainly not. Where did you get them?"

  "Out of your trash barrels back of the house," Bohannon says.

  She acts indignant. "You had no right to—"

  "We have a search warrant." Gerard hands her the sweater, jeans, and shoes and produces the paper again, unfolding it, holding it up for her to read. "It covers the grounds, the house, and all outbuildings."

  She eyes it and seems to shrink a little. But she braves up in a second. "I have no idea how these got there. No idea." She drops the clothes and snatches the paper, reading it closely. Her head jerks up. "Harold Willard? Why— why— Judge Willard is a close personal friend. He's one of the principal contributors to—" She thrusts the paper back at Gerard. "Why would he sign such a warrant? What lies did you tell him about me?"

  "It's not going to be hard to prove those are your clothes, Dr. Combs, your shoes. And they have bloodstains on them. We can trace the clothes to where you bought them. We can trace the bloodstains to Mr. Lubowitz. And" —he flashes it— "Mr. Lubowitz's wallet."

  "Dolly? What's wrong?" A dainty pink and white woman appears behind the doctor of music. Fluffy would describe her. Curvacious once, now pudgy. Her voice is little-girlish. "Who are these men?" Her blue eyes widen, looking at them. "What do they want? Is it about poor, dear Cedric?"

  "Go away, Mary Beth. Let me handle this."

  Mary Beth Madison sees the clothes. She stoops and picks up the sweater. "Why, where did you find this? I've been looking all over for it. I was going to take it to the cleaners days ago." She draws in her breath. "Why, just look at those stains. Now, those were not on it when I—"

  Dr. Combs tries to kill her with a look. "Will you be quiet?" she says. "Do you have to rattle on and on constantly?"

  The plump little woman is amazed. "But, Dolly, I only—"

  "Shut up, can't you?" The Combs woman is trembling. "Mary Beth, please go away, now. You're only making things worse." But Mary Beth simply stands, holding the sweater, totally bewildered.

  Gerard asks her, "Is that Dr. Combs's sweater?"

  "Oh, yes." Mary Beth nods. "Hand-knitted. From Ireland. We were there two years ago." She looks adoringly at her big friend. "Dolly played an organ recital in Dublin. Beautiful old church." Her small hands are stroking the sweater. She looks at it again. "Dolly, what are these awful splotches? Will they ever come out?"

  Her lifelong friend lets out a snarl and strikes Mary Beth Madison hard across the face. The little woman staggers backward, appalled, holding her bruised cheek.

  "Dolly." She gasps. "You hit me. What's happened to you?"

  Gerard steps forward, taking handcuffs off his belt. "Dolores Combs, you are under arrest for the murder of Cedric Martin Lubowitz." He reaches to turn her around, but she swings at him, too. He dodges the blow, but she is running away, down a long living room where a Bosendorfer grand stands glossy in stained-glass gloom. Bohannon takes after her. Oriental carpets slide under his boots. She has reached French doors at the end of the room and is tugging at the latches before he can grab her. She is strong and flails and kicks, but he gets her arms behind her, finally, and swings her— she's a good weight, is Dr. Combs— back toward Gerard, who now manages to cuff her wrists. Behind her, as if she were some L.A. street tough.

  He half nudges, half lifts her down the room, toward the front door, droning the Miranda warning, grunting with the effort she is costing him. Bohannon goes ahead to gather up the jeans and shoes from the floor. He reaches out to Mary Beth for the sweater. She hands it to him, but she is listening to the outraged Dr. Combs.

  "This is grotesque," the big woman says. "Why would I kill Cedric Lubowitz? Why would I kill anyone? No jury in the world will believe Dr. Dolores Combs is a murderer. When Judge Willard hears— aah! Let me go. You're hurting me."

  Mary Beth begins beating on Gerard with her little fists. "Stop it," she says. "Stop hurting Dolly." Bohannon pulls her off the lieutenant. She clutches his arms. "Where are you taking her?"

  "Just down to the sheriff station." Gerard grunts, wrestling the large woman through the doorway, out onto the porch. "For a nice talk."

  "I'll come, too," Mary Beth says. "Dolly, what shall I wear?"

  "No, dearest," the handcuffed woman says. "You stay here and feed the cats." And she goes with Gerard down the plank steps t
o the path, no longer resisting, lumpish, defeated.

  The little pink and white girl of sixty gazes wanly after her. "When will you come home, Dolly?" Her question drifts off into the noon silence of the woods, as sad a sound as Bohannon has ever heard.

  * * *

  It is sundown. T. Hodges is washing down Twilight, while Mousie stands by, reins loosely knotted to a post of the long stable walkway. Before Bohannon has fully stopped the truck, Kelly is out of it, running to help the deputy. She smiles at him, hands him the sponge, walks toward Bohannon, wearily brushing a strand of hair off her face.

  "Boy, am I glad to see you." She gives him a hug.

  "You okay?" he says.

  "I think," she says thoughtfully, taking his hand and walking toward the ranch house, "you work much too hard for a living."

  "I'm sorry I stranded you here." They go along the house porch and in at the kitchen screen door. "I didn't know so much would happen so soon. And Gerard wanted me there for the interrogation."

  "It was Dolores Combs, then?" She drops onto a chair. "Oh, am I going to be sore tomorrow."

  "It was Dolores Combs." Bohannon fetches Old Crow and glasses and sits down opposite her at the table. "She thought we'd never guess, so she didn't bother to hide her bloodstained clothes." He pours whiskey into the glasses and hands her one. "She just threw them in the trash."

  "How did she get him to drive her up the canyon?"

  "Some romance about Mary Beth being stranded up there. I don't know why he believed her. But he did. And took along his gun."

  "Odd." She frowns. "A man like that carrying a gun."

  "One of his fellow stockbrokers got mugged and badly beaten recently. It upset the firm, and Cedric Lubowitz not least. Another lesson for society. Leave the guns to law enforcement. But they won't learn."

  She tastes the whiskey and again reaches for Bohannon's cigarettes on the table. "And the prowler Steve Belcher shot at?"

  "Combs. After she'd driven halfway down the canyon, she worried whether he'd find the gun and pick it up. She turned the car around and drove back. Well, he'd found it all right, hadn't he?" He gives his head a wondering shake. "She and Kelly must have missed each other by inches, running away in the dark."

  She laughs briefly, grows somber again. "We know why she hated Steve. Why did she hate Cedric Lubowitz?"

  "Fear is the word you want." Bohannon stretches an arm and switches on the lamp. "She was convinced, as Mrs. Madison, the girls' mother, had been, that that Jew scoundrel only married Rose for her money."

  "Please, Hack. Belle Hesseltine says the Lubowitzes were rich."

  "If you want to hate Jews, sweet reason is meaningless, Deputy."

  She sighs. "I guess so. So… Dolores was convinced once Rose was dead, and Cedric came up here, and immediately started wining and dining Mary Beth, he meant to marry her and take over her fortune, too?"

  Bohannon nods. "And put Dolores Combs out to starve and freeze in the cruel world. And she didn't want to give up the beautiful house, the antiques, the jewelry, the Cadillac, the parties and banquets. And most of all the power. Money is power, Deputy. Ever hear that before?"

  "Mary Beth's love didn't count for anything?"

  Bohannon shrugs, sighs. "Who knows? Maybe once long ago. But Dolores learned how nice being rich was, and, face it, she didn't do much with all that talent she kept raving about this afternoon." He adopts a plummy elocutionary voice. " 'I could have been an international star. But I gave that up for Mary Beth. Stayed here in this backwater…' et cetera, et cetera." He resumes his normal voice. "Hell, a backwater was what she needed. Organizing her little ensembles, festivals, concerts. She swayed around here like a duchess. You've seen her."

  "And she thought Cedric Lubowitz would end all that?"

  "Thought so enough to kill him," Bohannon says.

  T. Hodges sits studying her hands around the glass for a long minute. "It's pitiful," she says. She raises her head, looks into his face. "And Mary Beth? Mary Beth worshipped her. What will she do now?"

  "Wait for her to come home," Bohannon says.

  Christine Matthews

  Character Flaw

  ROBERTA STANTON, a crazy lady P.I., was born out of a real-life situation and made her first appearance in the anthology Deadly Allies II. Her creator, Christine Matthews, is a veteran short story writer with more than fifty to her credit. Her mysteries have appeared in dozens of anthologies, and the best of them were recently anthologized in the short story collection, Gentle Insanities and Other States of Mind. An erotic thriller, Scarred for Life will be released later in 2001. "Character Flaw," first published in The Shamus Game, has Roberta at her wild and woolly best.

  Character Flaw

  Christine Matthews

  If it hadn't been for the blood matted in her hair, I would have noticed Skye Cahill's turquoise eyes first.

  "Miss Stanton?" she asked in such a calm voice. "Are you the Roberta Stanton? The one from TV?"

  "Yes."

  "I just killed someone— well, not just someone… I'm pretty sure he was my father."

  I stood back from the door. "Get out of the hall." I let her into my apartment so easily. I wasn't the least bit frightened. Not even after noticing the gun in her right hand.

  I guess I was at that raw patch in my life. There didn't seem to be a clean spot left on my body or psyche that hadn't been hurt. It felt like I'd been frightened for years. Then one day I just got pissed off. But the terror returned. In tidal waves. Then suddenly… it passed. All of it— the good and the bad. Nothing mattered. And it was at that point in my life I let a frightened stranger enter my apartment.

  She stood in the middle of the kitchen, unsure where to turn. Like a dog circling until he finally plops down for a nap.

  I pointed to a dining room chair. "Why don't you sit there?"

  "Yeah. Okay… I'll do that… I'll…"

  "How about if I take this?" I reached for the gun hanging from her limp hand.

  "Okay." No struggle. She let me take it and then eased herself onto the stiff chair. "Could I have some coffee? A Coke? I need caffeine. All the way over here I felt so tired, like I was going to fall asleep. Isn't that crazy?" She looked at me, realizing how her last word stung and quickly added, "Sorry."

  I laid the gun on the counter, in plain sight, but closer to me just in case I needed to go for it. Then I poured last night's coffee into a clean mug and set it in the microwave. "Well, I did spend time in a mental hospital."

  She took the coffee from me and shrugged. "So you hired a hit man, big deal. If I had the money, I wouldn't have had to kill my father myself."

  "But I was messed up back then…"

  "That's why I came to you. I remembered reading all about your trouble growing up, how they took your license away, and how you finally got out last year. I knew you— of all people— would understand how I feel."

  I sat down across from her, folding my hands on top of the table. "Understand what?"

  "That it was his fault, not mine."

  Before we got any deeper into our new relationship, I thought it best to tell her, "I have to call the police, you know. If what you're saying is true and you killed a man?"

  She looked at me like I was an idiot. "Of course. But I came to hire you first."

  I picked up my cordless, curious to see her reaction. "I make the call first and then we talk while we wait."

  "Fine." She gulped the hot coffee down; I wondered how she managed without burning her throat. "Call."

  * * *

  "I figure we've got at least ten minutes— tops," I told her after hanging up.

  "It won't even take that long," she said, reaching for her purse.

  I jumped for the gun then, and she grinned like I'd fallen for the punch line of a tired old joke. While I held it on her, she groped around in her tote bag.

  "I made this on the way over here." She handed me a cassette tape.

  I took it with my free hand. Turning it over, I asked,
"What is it?"

  "Details. I thought it was important you have my side of the story before you go investigate."

  "So you're hiring me to establish the fact that you killed your father? I don't get it." I put the gun back on the table, feeling foolish pointing the thing at her that way.

  "No, I want you to check out the man. You'll find his body at the address I wrote on the tape. I can stall the police for a while. You go there, look around… to make sure."

  "He's dead, right?"