AHMM, January-February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Volti arrived first, loud and animated as ever. He immediately demanded to know just what that table and chairs were doing on stage, then ignored Lipinski and her explanation as he spied Barbara and hurried to give her a bear hug that lifted her off her feet. Mike Morris entered a few minutes later, offering greetings a bit more subdued, followed by Crawford, who offered even less. Next came Warner, Rydell's nephew, with polite handshakes for the “scrappy alley cats.” A good fifteen minutes then passed before Jeri Hall dragged in with apologies, and it was another ten before the chatter played itself out and Morris asked Kubiak just what he was up to.

  "You mean,” Morris asked, after Kubiak explained, “you physically want us to sit at this table? I don't see the point."

  "I'd prefer you in the same chairs you were in around that table in the bar when Barbara joined you Wednesday night,” Kubiak told him. “It isn't necessary, but you have to sit somewhere, and it might help with your recollection of the evening."

  "Why couldn't we have just met at the bar, then?"

  "A number of reasons, beginning with too many distractions. The same table might not be open, and there are a few of us here who weren't at the table that night."

  After about the amount of grumbling Kubiak had expected, there was much shuffling about the table. At one point, Volti got elbowed by Jeri Hall when he tried to take the chair beside Lipinski. Both ordered him to the next available seat.

  "I swear this wasn't where I was,” he boomed. “You know I never sit with my back to the bar's door. But where is the door? Can I get some stage direction here?"

  Finally, the four were seated. Kubiak stood a few paces back with Barbara at his side. Denise, Crawford, and Warner were seated off to the side of the stage, Crawford alternately grunting and chuckling at the spectacle.

  "I don't like it,” Jeri Hall said, squirming in her seat. “We're sitting right over the spot where Janet ... where she..."

  So, Kubiak thought, at least one of them noticed.

  "It's just silly, is all,” Volti grunted, and aimed his chin at Kubiak. “If we're going to play games, why is it you making up the rules?"

  "If we're going to play this game,” Kubiak told him, “I hope you can do better than you've shown so far. It's your recollection I'm counting on. You're all actors, you're accustomed to remembering lines and saying them back. I only want you to replay the few minutes after Barbara met you Wednesday night."

  "But, why?” Morris demanded. “We all told the police—"

  "The police interviewed each of you separately, which is their way, and is generally most effective at getting at the truth. I think in this case, though, we might get at the truth a little quicker if we do it together. For instance, Mr. Volti, you said you never sit with your back to the door. Were you the first to see Barbara enter?"

  "Oh, how would I know? I suppose. Let's say I was."

  "No,” Jeri Hall said. “It was me. Remember? I didn't notice her until she was just a few feet away, and I blurted out her name. Pammy, she was right behind you. You stood up and gave her a hug."

  Kubiak told Barbara to go ahead and take her seat at the table. She seemed reluctant to leave his side, but she did, and approached the group with an expression on her face that conveyed to her friends this wasn't her idea. Lipinski asked Kubiak if he wanted her to stand and hug Barbara, and he told her that was entirely up to her. Volti muttered something about more lack of stage direction.

  Over the next few minutes, the group pieced together the conversation in a jigsaw puzzle manner that made Kubiak long for Barbara's convoluted renditions. Lipinski had asked Barbara why she wasn't with her boyfriend, and Barbara had explained. Volti had said something about Watts that he had the good grace not to repeat now; he had been chastised for it by Lipinski, then he had gone to get Barbara a beer.

  He rose from the table, eyeing Kubiak the way he had the other day, crossed to the side of the stage, went through the motions of ordering a drink in exaggerated pantomime, provoking a chuckle from only Morris. The others carried on. They had talked about the play. Hall, whose memory seemed keenest, had brought up a weekend trip to Michigan she had planned. Lipinski had talked about her cats.

  "Two tabbies,” Volti bellowed to Kubiak from his invisible bar. “Not your typical segue from a trip to Michigan, but that's how conversations tend to go around here. I don't know if you've had your fill of it yet—"

  "I know I have,” Morris said, standing. “This entire—"

  "Who brought up the fact that Janet Rydell was here finishing up work?” Kubiak interrupted.

  "I don't know,” Morris said. “What does it matter?"

  "It matters. Come on, Mr. Morris, you haven't chimed in yet on a single point of conversation. You must remember something of that night. Who was the first to mention to Barbara that Rydell was here?"

  "I honestly don't remember.” He shrugged, and when no one else offered anything added, “If I had to guess, I'd say it was Pamela. Right, Pammy? I mean, it was you always trying to get the two of them back together."

  "Not that night I wasn't."

  "No, I recall now. You asked Bobo if she had made any headway in patching things up. Then you mentioned that we had spent the afternoon with Rydell, and that she was going back to the The Emerald after work."

  Lipinski blinked, pushed those glasses back along the bridge of her nose, looked around the table. “But I'm sure I didn't."

  "No,” Kubiak said to her. “You didn't. In fact, in the coffee shop the other morning you said you had even warned Barbara against going to the theater. So who was suggesting otherwise besides Barbara? Come on, one of you must remember. All of you—"

  "It was you, Mike,” Jeri Hall interjected in that small voice that could only suggest, never accuse. She was staring up at Morris, her eyes narrow as she searched her memory. “You brought it up twice. You even offered to drive Bobo because of the rain."

  "Did I? Then why don't I remember that? And what difference does it make anyway?"

  "It makes all the difference,” Kubiak told him. “Barbara and Watts came to me claiming she was set up, and they were right. When the tensions between Rydell and Barbara, fueled no doubt by the kind of gossip passed around your Wednesday night tables, got high enough to cause Rydell to seek an order of protection against Barbara, the opportunity arose to finally get the meddlesome Ms. Rydell out of the way of all your aspirations and have the murder pinned on Barbara. Any Wednesday night would be best, as the killer could shoot Rydell just before he came to meet you all here, knowing that Barbara's alibi that she was with her boyfriend watching television is about as weak as an alibi gets.

  "But he chose the wrong Wednesday night. Imagine the look on his face when, sitting at the table only minutes after committing the murder, Barbara, out of the blue, walked into the bar and announced that she had spent the entire evening with friends at a seminar. Well, you all don't have to imagine it, do you? If you'll recall, you all saw it on Mr. Morris's face. Of course, you didn't know it for what it was at the time, just as his anxiousness to send Barbara to The Emerald didn't arouse your suspicions that night because you didn't know Rydell was lying there dead. But you do now, and you realize, just as he did, that the only thing he could do to save himself was to get Barbara to that theater alone before the body was discovered, which he did manage to do. And you were all witnesses to his doing it."

  There was a smile plastered on Morris's face that wouldn't have gotten him a gig in a high school play. He turned it on Barbara, and she shivered the way she had on Kubiak's couch that first night.

  "I do remember you offering the ride, Mike,” she said weakly, almost apologetically. “I thought about it all along the walk to The Emerald while I was getting drenched in the rain."

  "Oh, this is so meaningless,” Morris protested. He turned to Crawford. “Lieutenant, please?” But Crawford offered him nothing. He turned to Volti, but Volti had quieted.

  "Actually, old buddy,” Volti said, “I now recall
your pressing the point awfully hard. But I'm sure ... well..."

  "Et tu, brother?” Morris dismissed him, turned back to Kubiak. “Some fun game you picked. Unfortunately, all it really proves is that I was the only gentleman in the bar that night, or the only one with a car."

  "No,” Kubiak said. “What it does is give the investigation the next direction to go in once Barbara and Watts are cleared."

  "But I understand Watts isn't cleared. And as for Bobo, aren't we all forgetting about her name that Janet managed to scrawl before she died? Or is that not as incriminating as a gentleman offering a lady a ride on a rainy night?"

  "Yes,” Kubiak said, “that was a little bonus you hadn't figured on. My apologies, Mr. Warner. I've already referred to your aunt once as meddlesome, but she did live up to that reputation even in death, as her actions only complicated matters.

  "But it was obvious from the start the killing couldn't have gone down the way Mr. Morris arranged to have it appear—to his credit, it was only a backup tactic hastily prepared—because there would have had to have been premeditation. Barbara would have had to have the gun with her already, which means she had previously rummaged around backstage for it and then gone to the trouble of loading it with live ammunition, which was not the scenario painted. Now, it was possible her boyfriend, Watts, being a gentleman like Mr. Morris, had arranged to murder Rydell on Barbara's behalf. That was the suggestion I made to Lieutenant Crawford that I now regret doing, which is why I made arrangements to have Mr. Watts released so he might be here with us tonight."

  "Like hell you did.” The exclamation came from Crawford, who rose from his chair.

  "I figured you wouldn't be convinced of any of this if you weren't here to see for yourself,” Kubiak told him. He turned and called out to the back of the theater. “Sir, will you please approach the stage just as I did the night of Rydell's death?"

  The stage lights from beneath the balcony blinked on, flooding the stage with white light. Kubiak watched the faces of the group as they squinted out at the still dark orchestra section trying in vain to locate which aisle Watts might be coming down. Barbara jumped to her feet, also searching, shading her eyes with her hand.

  "Simon?” she called out, taking two steps forward.

  "Go ahead,” Kubiak told her, and she did, leaping off the stage into the raised orchestra pit, then disappearing into the shadows beneath the stage lights. She was back in seconds, looking dismayed, being led to the edge of the stage by a beaming Purcell.

  "You were expecting someone else, Crawford?” Kubiak asked. “You see, Morris did the same thing Barbara did when she, Watts, and I entered the theater that night: He stopped at the light- and soundboard and threw on those stage lights. Rydell had been working by the light of a single incandescent, and she was shot from six rows back. If she saw anything of her assailant, it was only a shadow, but it was an assault from Barbara she was expecting, so she naturally assumed it was her."

  No one said anything for a moment. Then the silence was broken by a single clap of Mike Morris's hands, followed by a forced laugh as he plopped himself back down in his chair.

  "Well, well,” he said. “Nice theater, Mr. Kubiak. But what do you plan to do in the second act? Have me arrested?"

  "Yes,” Kubiak told him.

  * * * *

  Kubiak had been dragged over to District 19 along with Morris. He didn't arrive home until after midnight. Denise was waiting for him.

  "You have to hand it to Crawford,” he said, finally pouring that beer for himself at the bar by the front window. “He had Morris broken down in under five hours, even got him to give up where he stashed the gun."

  "Well,” Denise told him, “you always say, once you get a man's friends or family to turn on him ... You zeroed in on Morris awfully fast yourself. What made you suspect him over the others?"

  "That gun. When I asked him about it at the coffee shop, he claimed not to know whether it was a revolver or a semiautomatic, yet it had to be carefully loaded with blanks, and he had just fired it last Christmas at Volti on a nightly basis, which he also conveniently forgot. A little too much deliberate ignorance on his part to keep me from guessing he might have just used it on Rydell only hours earlier."

  "That's nice."

  "Nice? I don't know what's nice about it. What is it, what's the matter?"

  "I'm just a little disappointed in your methods this time."

  "You mean that whole business of getting Watts implicated to take the heat off Barbara?"

  "No, I'm talking about the business of claiming to have sprung Watts and having him there in the theater, calling out at him to turn on the lights. You've always done a fine job of obfuscating, but I've never known you to outright lie."

  "But I didn't. I only said I made arrangements for Watts's release, not that I managed it. You remember this morning at breakfast when Barbara asked us if we knew a good lawyer, and I phoned ours on her behalf? What would you call that? And I never did refer to Purcell as Watts. You only thought I did. The magic of theater."

  "How did you talk Purcell into that anyway? And why him? I could have taken the part just as easily."

  "Of course you could have,” Kubiak told her. “And you're always first on my mind. But I didn't want to tear you away from little Bobo's side, and there was some danger involved. If Morris had bolted for the lobby door, the only thing between it and him was Purcell. I even warned Purcell about it, but he didn't seem to care. He took quite a liking to Barbara during her passings through the lobby. I'm sure that when she rides the wave of publicity over this to center stage in the Loop's theater district, he'll be her biggest fan, with complimentary tickets in his back pocket to Saturday night seats in the orchestra pit. I only hope he can keep his mouth shut about it downstairs. The last thing we need are any more late night visitors demanding rum and favors. All this talk, talk, talk. It seldom comes to any good.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Stever Lindley

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  Fiction: THE GINKGO LEAF by Ann Woodward

  After clouds and wind and finally driving rain, the first cold had come, heavy and still in the night. Though it was already the Tenth Month, there had been balmy weeks, and the edge of winter was not yet expected. One sleepy bird piped a weak complaint at long intervals; the last leaves fell one by one to rattle gently against those on the ground. Inside the house, bare floorboards were chill as ice except near the firebox. The old woman drew off the koto cover, a piece of brocade so old it raveled if touched too harshly. Almost apologizing to it for moving it from its customary place near the outer doors, she carried the koto to the girl, who sat on a cushion holding her hands to the charcoal pulsing with fire. There was a faint chime of strings as the instrument was set down. The girl instantly began tuning, adjusting the bridges, plucking out a minor mode. Soon she began to play, simply the melody of a folk song. Danger to itself, the plum tree blossoms too soon.

  He left his horse and his guards at some distance down the alley and walked alone to her house. The guards knew every aspect of his visits here, they saw his seriousness and made no remarks. Moving away from the bloody events of the day, he felt his nature overcome the split that life required of him. As her music became clearer, he allowed cleansing breath into his chest, he felt that he became a being of air and not of blood, blood too easily released to stain the earth, to mar the least event, in these days of fighting. Others might think of him as a man of strife, but he saw himself as the one who had found this remarkable girl who was a victim, a girl whose music, so wistful, so tender, expressed to him the essence of his struggle to live as he felt a man should.

  Arriving, he found the place in the wall where he had stepped through many times before. Yes, the black door was unlocked; yes, the lamp was there in a pool of light; yes, he slid open the final door, after crossing two halls of looming emptiness; yes, too bad, she still hid behind her curtain frame, a wall of hanging silk wafted inward by the drafts of his coming. As
usual, the old woman had been banished. As usual, she played on, though he knew she had heard him come. Not as usual, he lifted away the stand with its billowing silk. She faltered and stopped playing.

  "What—"

  "We do not need this. It is time for us to sit in firelight with uncovered faces.” He regarded her with frank kindness, and she was as he had thought she would be, rather plain but pale, her features flat and unadorned with powder, rouge, or lip color. Her expression was grave and frightened, but he thought that when she smiled, there would not be the stylish vacancy caused by the fashion of blackened teeth and that it would be a smile of welcome.

  Flipping the plectrums from her fingers, she turned her face away and fussed with her robes, adjusting the collars, spreading the sleeves, reaching into an inner belt for her fan. But he took it from her and placed it behind him. “Uncovered,” he said.

  She hid her mouth with the tips of fingers stretching out under a sleeve. She could not tell if she would laugh or if tears would come. Dipping her head, she let her hair fall low. Behind her, the stream of her hair, uncut since she was born, lay across the folds of her top robe, vivid black on gold, longer than she was tall.

  "Now breathe,” he said. “I am not so frightening, am I?"

  Oh, no, he is not, she thought, though it was a northern face such as she had never seen, dark and deeply carved. But she could not untangle the tight cords in her throat and words did not come.

  "Now play some more."

  She played, using the words that everyone knew as old songs. How like ice my heart, when I wait and wait and wait, and you do not come ... Greenwater River flows deep, heavy and silent. So is my heart deep. One must respect strength like that, for it can sweep all away ... Do not leave me here, Oh do not leave me here where all can see my tears. For they will whisper of you, Where is he? They will wonder. Then she stopped and found her own words.