“Not noble, Mrs. Aikens. Nob’l. Or, if we consider the capital N and put the missing vowel in its proper place—Nobel. Were you aware, Mrs. Aikens, that in 1962, John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature?”
Slowly Laura Aikens lowered her head. And then something shook her body. Once. Then again.
She was laughing.
“Father’s wordplay,” she giggled. “Even after death it goes on. There, Mr. Corcoran, on one of those shelves by the fireplace. There’s where you’ll find the Steinbeck books.”
Corcoran approached the shelf. “There seem to be four Steinbeck books here,” he said. “And the very titles you mentioned.”
He drew one of the books from the shelf and peered closely at its cover. Then he sniffed it. “No first edition, this,” he said. “It’s too new. Worth perhaps $15 at most. I’m afraid we lose, Mr. Strang. Miss Wiggins, I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
He held the book loosely by its spine, and Mr. Strang could see tears welling in his eyes. “He forgot me,” Corcoran murmured sadly. “He forgot—”
Something appeared from between the pages of the book and fluttered to the floor. It was followed by a second fluttering. They appeared to be slips of paper.
Quickly Maude scooped up one from the floor, looked at both front and back, and uttered a loud gasp. “It’s a $1,000 bill!”
But already Mr. Strang had snatched the book from Corcoran’s hand and was shaking it vigorously. Bills dropped from between the pages like green snow. The second book revealed a similar cache. And the third. And the fourth.
A hundred such bills were found among the pages of the four Steinbeck volumes.
“One hundred thousand dollars!” Corcoran gasped, scarcely able to believe his own words. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Strang. And you, Miss Wiggins. And you, Mrs. Aikens.”
“I won’t be able to turn the money over to you until the will’s probated,” said Laura Aikens. “It’s part of the estate now, and the lawyers will want to know about this. But as soon as everything is settled, I’ll send you a check, Mr. Corcoran. And in the meantime, if you need a little something to tide you over, I’ll be happy to—”
“Perhaps that won’t be necessary,” said Mr. Strang. “Once this story hits the newspapers, I’m sure Mr. Corcoran’s credit will be excellent.”
“One hundred thousand!” sighed Maude. “Leonard, on the strength of our success, I think you ought to take me out to dinner this evening. Ah, Le Chateau Brun. Or perhaps the Aldershot Inne.”
“Dinner sounds fine,” the teacher replied. “But Wesley Corcoran got the money, not I. And it’s a week until payday. Will it be your place or mine?”
WILLIAM E. BRITTAIN is the author of many popular and critically acclaimed children’s books, including The Wish Giver, Shape-Changer, and Dr. Dredd’s Wagon of Wonders. His awards include a Newbury Honor in 1984. Among the mystery community he is best known for his “Mr. Strang” short stories, which starred his detective-teacher, the logical high school science teacher Leonard Strang. Brittain taught in North Carolina public schools and now lives in Asheville.
Copyright 1982 by William E. Brittain. First printed in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, mid-July 1982. Reprinted with permission of the author.
Killer Fudge
Kathy Hogan Trocheck
I was busy touching up my mental image of the new Callahan Garrity: long sleek legs, nonexistent thighs, flat belly, firm shapely arms. My stomach growled angrily. I love the first day of a diet. The happy feeling of starvation, the power you feel over your gnawing appetite.
A shadow fell over the lawn chair where I was stretched out.
I opened one eye. A generously built black woman with a sad expression stood beside me, blocking out the sun that was to tone me, bake me, turn me into something out of a Coppertone ad.
“Callahan,” she said tentatively. “Edna told me to come talk to you.”
“Hello, Ruby,” I said, with little enthusiasm. “If it’s about that extra day you want to work, take it up with Edna. It’s her day on the books. I’m taking the afternoon off for self-improvement.”
Edna, my mother and business partner, was supposed to be handling the office while I recharged my batteries. It had been an awful week.
“No’m, it’s not about work,” Ruby said. “Well, it sort of is, but it’s really about Darius.”
“Darius,” I said. “Is he one of your nephews?” Ruby has so many nieces and nephews, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, that I can never keep track of them all.
“Foster grandson,” she prompted. “My Darius is in trouble, Callahan. I need you to see about it.”
Seeing about other people’s troubles is what I do in my nonexistent spare time. I bought The House Mouse shortly after quitting my job as a detective for the Atlanta Police Department. Some women take up tennis. I dabble in private investigation. Doesn’t burn up near the calories, unfortunately.
I sat up slowly and looked down at my belly, slightly pink and flabby and oily from the suntan lotion. Not flat and brown. Oh well.
Ruby is a rock usually, one of those imperturbable women whose expressions stay calm in the face of untold troubles. She’s a mainstay of The House Mouse, the cleaning business Edna and I run out of my house here in Atlanta. But today her lower lip was trembling, and she dabbed continually at her eyes with a crumpled hankie.
She perched at the edge of my lawn chair, smoothing her white cleaning smock down over her knees.
“You know Mr. Ragan, my Thursday morning job? Old gentleman lives alone over there off Hooper Avenue?”
I remembered the name.
“Mr. Ragan’s dead,” Ruby said. Tears spilled down her smooth round cheeks. “Murdered. And the police think my Darius did it. They come to the house this morning and took him away. Handcuffed him like you see on the TV news.”
“Why would they suspect Darius?” I asked. “Does he even know Merritt Ragan?”
She nodded. “Darius been doing Mr. Ragan’s yard work for a year. He liked that old man a lot. And Mr. Ragan liked him too. Paid Darius $25 to keep the yard nice. Darius wouldn’t hurt that old man. He’s a good boy. A good worker. So I want to know can you see about it? I’ll pay. You can take the money out of my check every week.”
She reached in her smock pocket and pulled out a crisp $100 bill and held it toward me. “This here’s the down payment. Is that right?”
I stood up and pulled on the shorts I’d left on the ground, then straightened up to zip. They were definitely looser. “Keep the money, Ruby. Employees get a 50 percent discount on private investigation work.”
Edna looked up from the bank deposit she’d been preparing and frowned. A stack of checks sat on the table next to a smaller stack of twenties. She took a deep drag on the extra-long filtered cigarette and exhaled slowly, letting the smoke halo her carefully coiffed white hair.
“You gonna help Ruby?”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Of course I’ll help her. The woman’s a saint. But that doesn’t mean little Darius is. I guess I’ll head down to homicide to see what the deal is with the charges. Can you hold the fort here?”
She glanced at the kitchen clock. “It’s four now. The girls are done for the day. I’ll put the answering machine on and come with you.”
The last thing I needed was my mother along for the ride. “I may need you to do some phone work for me,” I said tactfully. “Stay here and I’ll call you after I know if they intend to keep him.”
She pooched out her lower lip, took another drag on her cigarette, and regarded me through narrowed eyes. “I know a brush-off when I hear one.”
As luck would have it, the only soul occupying the homicide detective’s office was a friendly face, Bucky Deavers, an old friend from my days as a burglary detective.
We traded good-natured insults, then I got down to business.
“I’m looking for information on the Merritt Ragan homicide. I’m working for the kid you picked up and charged this
morning.”
Bucky leafed through some papers in a box of reports on his desk. “Oh yea. Merritt Ragan. He’s the old dude over off of Hooper Avenue. Kid came in the house, saw all this money, bopped him on the head, took the money, and split.”
I reached over and plucked the report from his hands. “I doubt the report says that.”
He leaned back in the chair and folded his hands behind his neck. “Read it and weep,” he said. “The kid did it, Callahan. His fingerprints are all over the kitchen and the murder weapon. Which was one of those heavy old-fashioned irons, by the way.”
“He worked there,” I said. “Yard man. And Ragan invited him in all the time. He probably saw the iron some other time and picked it up to ask about it.”
“He’s got a sheet,” Bucky said. “Did time at the Youth Detention Center up in Alto for burglary and assault.”
“Misspent youth,” I said, scanning the report. “He’s lived with his grandma for a year, cleaned up his act, works all the time, goes to church regular. He’s a new kid.”
“He’s a rotten little killer,” Bucky said. “We found the cash on him, 200 bucks. Had it stashed in his Air Jordans. He admitted he took it from Ragan.”
“What?” I said, startled. “His grandmother doesn’t know about any confession.”
“Grannies don’t know a lot of stuff,” Bucky said, a touch too smugly. “Your friend Darius says he went to the house yesterday afternoon to see about getting paid early. He says he went in, saw a bunch of money laying around by the front door, and left.”
“But he doesn’t admit he killed the old man.”
“Not yet,” Bucky said. “But we know he did it, and he knows it too. Homicide in commission of another felony. Robbery. He’s seventeen now, eighteen next month. We can try him as an adult. The DA’S looking at the death penalty.”
I sat up straight at the mention of Old Sparky, which is what they call Georgia’s electric chair, the one they keep warmed up down at the state prison at Jackson. “Jesus, the kid’s grandmother works for me. She swears he’s been rehabilitated.”
He was suddenly busy tidying things on his desktop. “I saw the grandmother this morning when we picked the kid up. Nice lady. She’s lucky Darius didn’t turn on her.”
I stood up to leave. “She knows the kid and she says he didn’t do it. That’s enough for me. Can you get me in to see him?”
Darius Greene wasn’t overjoyed to see me. He was slumped over in a chair when the guard escorted me into the visiting area. Long, blueclad legs stretched out in front of him. He had one of those trick haircuts the kids were into lately, with the hair shaved to the scalp in the back, moderating to a wedge shape that angled sharply to the left.
“Darius, I’m Callahan. Your grandmother works for me. She thinks I can help you.”
He cocked his head to the side and ran a practiced eye over me, then turned his attention back to the floor.
“You’re the one who keep Grandmama washing toilets,” he said tonelessly. “How’re you gonna help me? Gimme some toilets to scrub?”
I felt my face flush hot with guilt. And then I got mad. “I’m the one who takes your grandmama to the hospital when her blood pressure goes up. I’m the one sees she gets paid a decent wage for her work, so she can buy fancy basketball shoes for some snot-nosed kid she loves. And I’m also a former cop and a private detective. I can help you if you let me. Did you know the DA is thinking of asking for the death penalty for Merritt Ragan’s murder?”
“I heard,” he mumbled. He didn’t look worried.
I was losing patience. “Look, Darius. I’ve seen the police reports. This does not look good. Can you tell me anything at all about yesterday? Could anyone else have been in that house before you got there? Did you see Mr. Ragan when you went into the house? Had the door been forced?”
No answer.
“Did you kill him, Darius? Did you? Ruby says you’re a good boy. What happened? Why’d you take the money and kill him? He was a helpless old man. Is that what you’d like to have happen to Ruby?”
He continued to stare at the floor. “Ain’t tellin’ you nothin’. I’m gettin’ me a lawyer.”
On the other side of the screened door, Caroline Ragan’s lips set in a tight disapproving line when I told her who I was and what I wanted.
Somebody had told her that old-maid schoolteachers were supposed to be thin and humorless, and she’d taken their advice to heart. She had mouse-colored hair and close-set brown eyes, which she blinked continually.
“I’m sorry for Ruby’s troubles. She kept this house immaculate. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to let you come in and look around. The police said I could start cleaning things up today.”
Merritt Ragan’s gray saltbox house could have been an antique shop. Shelves lined the walls of every room, and each held a different collection. There were silver candlesticks, Steiff teddy bears, majolica, miniature snuffboxes, and blue and white porcelains. The wooden floor was dotted with jewel-toned Oriental rugs. The furniture was old too, and the mellow wood glowed in the late afternoon sunlight that poured through the windows.
“The kitchen’s in there,” Caroline said as we neared the back of the house. “That’s where they found Daddy. Go ahead in. I … don’t like to be there. Because of Daddy and all. The new cleaning service is supposed to take care of it tomorrow.” She glared at me when she mentioned the new cleaning service.
Merritt Ragan’s kitchen was one of the cheeriest murder scenes I’ve ever examined. White-painted cabinets lined the room, and a fruit-motif wallpaper covered the walls. Crisply ruffled white curtains hung at the windows. The floor was gleaming yellow vinyl. Spotless. I walked over to the back door and took a look. Fingerprint powder stained the wall and the woodwork of the door. About the door. The lock didn’t look like it had been tampered with.
“The police cleaned up the blood,” she said.
I turned around. Caroline stood in the doorway, her matchstick arms crossed over her chest, as though she were chilled.
“Daddy must have let him in,” she added. “I begged him to get a lawn service. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He was fascinated with that Darius.”
I got up and walked slowly around the room. The countertops were those of a man who lived alone and liked things orderly. A toaster, coffeemaker, and cordless phone were lined up in military fashion. The stove held a copper teakettle and a small wooden file box. Idly I flipped up the lid. A grease-spotted index card had a recipe for tomato aspic written in purple ink in a tiny crabbed handwriting. I closed the box.
“Your father got on with Darius?”
“They were thick as thieves,” she said, then laughed bitterly. “Literally, one might say.”
“The police say they found quite a bit of cash on Darius. Two hundred dollars. Cash he admitted taking from the house. Was your father in the habit of keeping that much cash around?”
She pulled nervously at the collar of her blouse.
“Cash? Daddy? I suppose he could have had that much around the house. Usually he liked to pay for things by check or credit card. It helped him with his record keeping.”
I roamed the small room again, looking for something the police might have missed. On a wooden chair pushed up to a small built-in desk I spotted a cardboard box. The contents were a jumble of odds and ends. A small blue and white platter. A sugar bowl with an unusual hand-painted pattern of bluebirds and butterflies, a green Depression-glass cake plate, and a pink tulip-shaped flower vase. McCoy, probably.
“What’s all this?” I asked.
She came over to look, and when she saw what was in the box, she gave a small indignant snort.
“More of Daddy’s trash. He went to estate sales every week and bought a lot of broken old junk. The good stuff he took to a flea market down by the airport and sold. It’s so humiliating, having your own father paw through dead people’s belongings. And actually selling them.” She shuddered. “It’s not as though he needed the money. Dad
was retired from IBM.”
I looked closer at Caroline Ragan. Her blouse was real silk, and the slacks she wore were well tailored. She wore a square-cut amethyst ring on her right hand, and a gold chain around her neck held a teardrop-shaped diamond pendant. Nice stuff for an old-maid schoolmarm.
“Are you the only heir?”
She stiffened. “I suppose. Stephen certainly couldn’t inherit.”
“Stephen?”
“My brother.”
“Why not?”
She was annoyed with me. It happens. “He’s institutionalized. At Atlanta Regional Hospital. He’s been there for fifteen years. Since Mama died. They say he’s schizophrenic.”
“Was your brother violent?”
I saw a small muscle twitch in her cheek. “Not at all. He’s very calm as long as he takes his medication.”
I looked again at the back door. “That lock wasn’t forced,” I pointed out. “I looked at the front door briefly when you let me in. It didn’t look tampered with either. That means your father probably let his murderer in here. Is there any chance Stephen could have gotten out of the hospital and come here?”
Her face flushed an ugly pink.
“That’s impossible. I’d like you to leave now. Darius Greene killed my father. He’s dangerous. An animal. My father’s skull was crushed. Did you know that?”
I let myself out the back door because it was easier than walking past the wrathful Caroline Ragan.
The backyard was like the rest of the house: well groomed. The scent of new-mown grass hung in the warm afternoon air, and there were lawn mower tracks in the grass. Darius Greene had definitely been here.
A late-model white Buick was parked in the small detached garage. I had a sudden urge to snoop. After glancing around to see if Caroline was still glaring at me, I walked briskly up to the car and peeked in the passenger-side window.
Clean as a whistle. No Big Mac wrappers, Diet Coke cans, or spare pairs of sneakers. Not nothing. I looked around the garage. Hand tools were hung on pegs over a workbench. Rakes, shovels, and hedge clippers hung from nails along the rafters. I ran my fingers along the clipper blades. A couple of still-green leaves clung to my fingertips.
Tar Heel Dead Page 11
