EQMM, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The pale girl was shaking her head, but did not speak. The others were listening with only a modicum of interest, for Jericho had accused almost everyone and had not yet provided them with a shred of evidence. He alone knew that he had Sally Freddins in the bag. And the terrified look on Sally's face suggested that she knew that she was busted. But there was nowhere to run.

  "What exactly happened when Sally knocked on the door to the woman's room? I suppose we won't know for sure unless Sally cares to enlighten us. Nevertheless, I can guess. The woman let you in without suspicion, Sally. Maybe because you're the only one here who was around her own age. Whatever her motivation, she did not suspect you when she let you in. She certainly didn't know what was coming when you grabbed her from behind.

  "She knew you liked her jewels, though. And maybe she caught on a bit when you were using the bathroom in her room. Maybe it wasn't you she was writing about, but you saw her journal. She wrote 'I think I'm in trouble.' Did that make you scared? Was that what made you decide you had to kill her to get the jewels? You couldn't steal them if she'd already noticed you eyeing them, could you, Sally?"

  At that point, Oliver Powers spoke up, a liberal mastermind who always came rushing to the defense of the guilty, willing to let murderers back on the streets, ready to fill the world with compassion and weakness. “What kind of evidence do you have, Jericho?"

  The masterstroke. Jericho savored it. He made his dramatic pause. He wanted this climax to last as long as possible.

  "It was the woman in the red dress's hair,” he said. “It hung down on each side of her face in a perfect frame of her head. When everyone else talked about her jewels, it was the ones that we could see. You could see her bracelet and you could see her necklace, but no one had been able to see her earrings. Her hair completely covered the woman's ears. But Sally said that she hadn't even paid any attention to the girl's earrings. How could she know that the woman had earrings unless she herself took them out of her ears?!"

  The whole group gasped. Jericho grinned triumphantly. Of course, they were all thinking. It made perfect sense. She was as guilty as sin.

  Sally leapt from the chair, tears trailing a river down her alabaster cheeks. She looked like an albino tiger loosed from its cage. Her teeth were bared. “Those were my jewels!"

  She further damned herself with her outburst. Were all rich people so demented as to believe that all pretty things were their own? Jericho was thankful he wasn't wearing a Gucci belt or she might have slain him, too, just to hitch up her jeans.

  Jericho advanced on her, and Sally slowly retreated, crying hysterically. The detective drew his gun.

  "Did you hold her head down while she drowned?” he taunted her. “Did you watch her choke on the water, drinking it, filling her lungs with it? How long did she take to die, Sally? Did you take off her jewelry afterward, pull it off her corpse, or had she already removed it for a shower? Did you have to pluck the earrings off of her cold, lifeless ears? Or were they already out and hidden? Is that why you ransacked the room, looking for them? Or was that just another distraction? How long were you planning this, Miss Freddins?"

  The girl tripped over a step, then backed into the large table that was still set for their long-postponed game. The props for the game were all strewn about in disarray. Sally's hand fell on the pipe. (Not the lead pipe of fame. This is the age of lead-poisoning. This one was made of good old American steel.) She grabbed the primitive weapon. If it was good enough for Colonel Mustard in the conservatory, it was good enough for her.

  "Stay back,” Sally warned. Jericho kept advancing on her. She was backing toward the front door, waving the pipe in front of her. “You're nuts.” Everyone is always crazy, Jericho thought, except for the loonies themselves. He told her to stop.

  "Maybe you're the murderer,” she said. “How do I know you won't shoot me whether I stop or go?” The others watched the standoff between cop and criminal. The pipe was no threat to anyone but Sally herself. It certainly couldn't stop a bullet. She opened the door and backed outside. The rain was wild and burst through the doorway. The night was chaos. Sally backed out into the storm, brandishing her pipe. She was still yelling, but no one could hear her over the thunder. Jericho kept his gun trained on her, but still she retreated. He could not bring himself to shoot the girl. She was not threatening him or anyone with that pipe. But he couldn't very well let her get away. He lowered his aim to her left thigh at the same time a bolt of lightning crashed out of the sky and struck the steel pipe that Sally was holding like a baseball bat.

  Both of her shoes exploded like firecrackers. She might have been screaming, but it couldn't be heard over the crackling of the superheated electrical fire that scorched her skin and clothing to a charred crust in mere seconds. When her corpse cooled enough for Jericho to get a good look, he saw that her left foot was completely gone and her hands were melted around the steel pipe as if it had always been a part of her body. There was a hole in her skull the size of a lemon where the lightning blew her boiling brains out like buckshot. Justice is served hot, Jericho thought. A murderer sent to God's version of the electric chair before the lawyers had a chance to muck it up.

  * * * *

  Epilogue

  What Really Happened

  Monica Wheeler just had to get out of the little scarlet dress. The thing was too tiny. She'd been hoping there might be a cute guy or two here who also happened to be rich, and perhaps even single. But the only bloke who showed the least interest was a man old enough to be her father and fat enough to be her father, mother, and two brothers rolled into one. Since the only other choice was a stuck-up guy in a tacky yellow coat, she was eager for this little escape. A half-hour until dinner. A half-hour before she had to resume this tired little game. She was going to kill her boss for sending her on this publicity stunt.

  Kelly Greene walked her upstairs and asked her for the fifth time if she was the murderer. Monica didn't even know, or care. It was a stupid game about a fake murder. Now, if there was a real body without a foot down there, then things might be a little fun. But this was like playing a game about skydiving: Some things you can pretend, and other things have just got to be for real. She told Kelly that she really didn't know. Kelly seemed to think it was she. Monica went to her room and wrote in her journal. She figured that Kelly was going to point her out as the murderer so she wrote "I think I'm in trouble." She wasn't really sad that she was going to lose this stupid game.

  She needed to find something more comfortable to wear to dinner. She was tired of Oliver Powers gawking at her legs, which were showing way too much in this little red dress. She went through her drawers and dug out a more comfortable and conser-vative scarlet pantsuit. She laid out the outfit on her bed. Now she was craving a relaxing shower. She still had almost twenty-five minutes before she had to be back to the group.

  There was a knock on the door. It was the old woman from downstairs. Monica had invited her up. She'd spotted a terrible snarl in the old woman's hair and offered to give her a hand. She had this comb that could work magic with even synthetic hair. The two fought the stubborn tangle and finally worked it loose. They put a tear in Margaret's beautiful peacock hat, though. “I can sew that later, if you like,” Monica said. Her mother had passed on from cancer years ago. She had recognized the stubborn sadness in the woman's eyes when she first arrived. Monica immediately had a soft spot for the vulnerable curmudgeon.

  She headed for the bathroom, ready to finally get out of the little scarlet number. She was stripped down and ready for the hot water when there was another knock at the door. Was it Sally? She was expecting the girl to stop by. She quickly grabbed the towel off of the sink as she headed for the door, wrapping herself in it as she went.

  It was Oliver. He offered her a bagel and asked her out. Charming, but he couldn't keep his eyes off what her towel wasn't hiding. Not in a million years would she let Ollie get a look underneath that towel. She politely declined and he left her with t
he bagel. He took her decline graciously. She gobbled a bite and set the remains beside her journal, then walked toward the bathroom. She wondered again if Sally was going to stop by. And the name stopped her dead in her tracks. She stared at the mirror in front of her. Her hair was tied back in a short ponytail. There were no earrings in her ears. Her neck was bare. She'd taken off the jewelry by habit, preparing for the shower. But she didn't recall at all where she'd put them. She had a moment of panic and then she turned and went back to her dresser where she'd selected her outfit for dinner.

  She yanked out random clothes in alarm as she tried to remember where she'd left the expensive diamonds. She just couldn't have misplaced them! Sally would kill her. The girl had lent them to her when Monica first arrived at the mystery mansion. “Gosh, those are beautiful,” Monica had said after Sally had introduced herself. The bracelet and necklace and earrings were all of a set. Sally told her that they would go great with her red dress. Monica just had to wear them, she insisted. Monica sensed that the girl was trying to befriend her. She must be used to having to buy her friends. Rather than hurt the girl's feelings, she accepted.

  But now she'd lost the bloody things! She'd had them ten minutes ago. But where? Her mother always said she'd lose her head if it wasn't attached. Where had she left them? Where? Then the memory welled in her mind. She recalled setting them on the bathroom sink, right between the toilet and the tub. Right on top of the red towel that she was now wearing. Then where were they now? She ran into the bathroom. There was nothing on the sink! Had she been robbed?! What would she tell Sally? But no, she saw them. They twinkled like ice in the harsh winter sun. They had dropped into the toilet when she yanked up the red towel after Oliver had knocked on her door. She even vaguely recalled hearing the splash. She grinned, relieved. Easy enough to fish out.

  She took one step onto the tiled floor of the regal bathroom. The jewelry had splashed just enough water from the toilet to make a decent slippery spot right under where Monica's foot landed. She fell straight forward and her head went right into the porcelain bowl, her face plunging into the toilet's water and banging hard against the bottom of the bowl. She saw stars. Reflexively, she gulped in a big mouthful of water, choking. She almost swallowed an earring, just inches from her face. She pulled back her head and her skull caught on the underside of the toilet's rim, making the stars she was seeing double up. Dizzy, she tried to get a footing to shift her weight to lift her face out of the water, but her foot just slipped again, and she went down once more.

  She was drowning and she was too disoriented to get her face out of the toilet. Flailing, panicking, she reached up and managed to pull the handle, and the toilet flushed. Water escaped down the drain, giving her a second of succulent air. The bracelet and necklace and earrings chased the water. The jewels were gone. Monica didn't even notice because the water quickly rose again, burying her face before she even caught a breath. She had just one chance. She reached up and up, trying to grab the toilet handle again, flailing around for the flipper. One more try. One last attempt. She wasn't going to die in a toilet. She just couldn't let it end this way.

  Copyright (c) 2006 Eddie Newton

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  AT WILLOW-WALK-BEHIND by James Powell

  Shortly after this issue goes to the printer, James Powell will be receiving the Grant Allen Award, reserved for Canadian crime-writing pioneers, at the Wolfe Island Scene of the Crime Festival in Canada's Thousand Islands. Mr. Powell has had more than 75 stories published in EQMM. A longtime resident of the U.S., he has invented his own sub-genre of the mystery, mixing fantasy, crime, and humor.

  On a windy March afternoon in 1929, a piebald day, now cloudy, now sunshine, Ambrose Ganelon III drove his white Terrapin convertible with the top up along the narrow, twisting road that tunneled through the Old Forest, the dense stand of trees covering much of Transporpentine San Sebastiano. His destination was Willow-Walk-Behind, a religious retreat house run by the monks of Saint Magnus.

  As the trees hurried by, Ganelon recalled his father saying that when Hannibal's elephants crossed the Alps people thought they were seeing a forest on the march, a Birnam Wood in search of some southern Dunsinane. And, speaking of trees, he remembered reading somewhere that even the oldest of families seldom outlive three oak trees. Grim food for thought, he being the third of his name to operate the principality's famous detective agency. True, his archrivals, the descendants of the evil Dr. Ludwig Fong, were in their third generation, too. But they had prospered since the War, particularly the English branch of the family led by Dorian Fong-Smythe, while the private detective business had never been worse.

  The sudden slapping of rubber interrupted Ganelon's gloomy musing. He had a flat. An impatient frown crossed his battered, street fighter's face as he pulled off the road beside some ancient apple trees. In a clearing behind them stood an orchard of younger trees in full blossom, their trunks wrapped in white cloth like the legs of racehorses. He got out his jack and spare and changed the tire. Then he leaned against the car and lit a cigarette.

  Suddenly a cloud crossed the sun and a voice close-by said, “Some say it was this time of the year when Adam and Eve were created."

  Ganelon swung around. An old man was leaning against one of the dotard apple trees. Brown and gnarled, he might have been carved from its wood. “I didn't mean to startle you,” he apologized. Then, glancing back at the apple blossoms, he continued. “Let's hope Paradise lasted longer than just the time between the flower and the fruit."

  "You said it,” agreed Ganelon.

  The old man smiled. “Came to help you with your tire. Can't move as quickly as I once did. Are you going far?” When Ganelon said Willow-Walk-Behind, the smile vanished. “Be careful in those woods, brother,” said the old man. “Something has gotten into the trees."

  With a smart beep-beep, a low-slung bright blue roadster with an attractive young woman behind the wheel rushed past them. Ganelon watched the driver disappear around a corner. “Maybe it's only the wind,” he answered absently, his mind still with the pretty lady.

  "Something strange, I mean,” insisted the old man.

  * * * *

  The retreat house was an ancient stone mill to which substantial additions had been made. The parking area in front was crowded. Ganelon noted the bright blue roadster whose registration number said it was from northwestern France.

  Father Boniface, the portly, red-faced retreat master, came out to welcome Ganelon, who was a frequent visitor because his friend and teacher Father Sylvanus lived in a nearby hermitage. “Looks like business is booming,” said the detective.

  "Not the religious retreat end of things,” the priest told him. “No, but Prentiss-Jenkins Aviation draws a lot of people who need a place to stay."

  Ganelon recalled that a large area of woods in the neighborhood had recently been cut down to provide a runway and a storage area for the British company, which was buying up surplus fighters and bombers from the War, flying them here, and storing them under canvas for resale.

  "Yes, it's all ‘Come Josephine in My Flying Machine’ around here,” said Father Boniface, who'd been a song plugger and a ballroom dancer—some said he was the original “Willie” in “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie"—until the carnality of the Turkey Trot and the Grizzly Bear drove him to a late religious vocation.

  "As if things aren't hectic enough,” continued the retreat master, “one of our guests wandered off after dinner last night. Probably got himself lost in the woods. We only discovered him missing at breakfast. We've had people out looking for him all morning. I've called the police. All this on the feast of Saint Magnus, our founder. And a very special Saint Magnus Day, at that."

  Before Ganelon could ask what was special about it, Father Boniface winked and held out his hand. “I'd better put it in our safe,” he said, cocking his head apologetically.

  Ganelon had forgotten to leave his Hrosco automatic at home. Now he unstrapped holster and
weapon and handed them over. As they disappeared inside Father Boniface's habit, one corner of the monk's mouth turned downward and the other up in a perfect replica of Ganelon's trademark cockeyed smile.

  Picking up Ganelon's suitcase to take it to the detective's usual room, the priest turned back to say, “When you see Father Sylvanus, ask yourself if perhaps he's been alone in the woods too long."

  As Father Boniface entered the retreat house, Ganelon's old friend Captain Alain Jerome came out the same door. Jerome possessed an aviator's confident air and a dashing moustache. During the War he commanded San Sebastiano's tiny air force with its cabbage-rose roundel, operating from an airfield just behind the lines where Ganelon's regiment saw action. Jerome's unit had taken “Love in the Clouds” as their theme song, a melody dating back to the giraffe craze of the 1840s when Anatole and Natalie were the most popular animals in the San Sebastiano zoo. His pilots even painted giraffe markings on their sturdy little Prentiss-Jenkins Hedgehog IIIs as a kind of ur-camouflage.

  The last time Ganelon saw Jerome was three years ago as the man set out on a surveying job for something called the Cairo to Cathay Railroad.

  "Your march through Syria, Arabia, Persia, and beyond, you said it sounded like fun. Was it?” asked the detective.

  Jerome laughed. “As far as it went. When I reached Teheran I found a telegraph telling me I was let go. My employers had run out of money.

  "As luck would have it, Riza Khan, who had been Persia's Minister of War and had just become the Shah, heard of my arrival and invited me to dinner to discuss the railroad project. I found him a down-to-earth and ambitious leader.

  "When he told me he meant to bind his unruly country together by increasing the army three-fold, I recalled the words of the British staff officer in Constantinople when I described my surveying trip. The Brit said they couldn't guarantee my safety. But if the Bedouins did capture me, he promised to send out planes and bomb the beggars until they let me go.