100 Malicious Little Mysteries

by Isaac Asimov

  “Yes,” Finlay said vaguely. “Listen, what’s the—”

  “Shush!” A chubby finger crossed the chaplain’s lips. “Let us not speak any longer, son. Let us pray.” He placed his palms together, and closed his eyes. Bewildered, Finlay mimicked him, and the chaplain droned on in a convincing monotone about salvation and redemption. When he was through, he beamed at the prisoner and took his leave.

  Finlay didn’t see the chaplain again until late that evening. This time, there wasn’t any hesitation about admitting the chubby little man to his cell. As soon as he was inside, Finlay whispered hoarsely at him:

  “Listen, I gotta know. Was it Willie sent you? Willie Parks?”

  “Shush,” the chaplain said nervously, looking at the strolling guard. “Let us not speak of earthly matters...”

  “It is Willie,” Finlay breathed. “I knew Willie wouldn’t let me down.” As the chaplain opened his little black book, he grinned and leaned back on the cot. “Go on, pal, I’m listening.”

  “The Bible tells us to have courage, my son,” the chaplain said meaningfully. “The Bible tells us to keep faith in ourselves, our friends, and our Lord. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Finlay said.

  That night, he slept well for the first time since his imprisonment. In the morning, he asked for the chaplain again, and the guard raised an eyebrow at the sudden conversion. When the little man arrived, Finlay smiled broadly at him and said: “What’s the Bible say this morning, chaplain?”

  “It speaks of hope,” the chaplain said gravely. “Shall we read it together?”

  “Sure, sure, whatever you say.”

  The chaplain read a lengthy passage, and Finlay began to stir restlessly. Then, just as he was about to explode with impatience, the chaplain handed the small book over, and Finlay saw the written message in the binding:

  Everything’s set.

  The chaplain smiled at the prisoner, patted his shoulder, and called the guard.

  On the beginning of what was officially his last day on earth, Finlay was visited by his attorney, a small man with a perennially moist upper lip. He had nothing to offer in the way of hope for commutation of the sentence, and Finlay gathered that his visit was merely to satisfy the contract. He seemed surprised by the condemned man’s congeniality, a sharp contrast to the hostility he had shown before. In the afternoon, the prison warden came by and asked Finlay again if he cared to reveal the name of his accomplice in the murder of the storekeeper, but Finlay merely smiled and wanted to know if he could see the chaplain. The warden pursed his lips and sighed. At six that evening, the chaplain returned.

  “How’s it gonna work?” Finlay whispered to him. “Do I crash outa here, or—”

  “Shush,” the little man warned. “We must trust a Higher Power.”

  Finlay nodded, and then they read the Bible together.

  At ten-thirty that night, two guards entered Finlay’s cell and performed the ugly duties of shaving his head and slitting the cuffs of his trousers. The ceremony made him nervous, and he began to doubt that his escape was ordained. He started to rave and demanded to see the chaplain; the little man appeared hurriedly and talked to him in quiet, firm tones about faith and courage. As he spoke, he placed a folded slip of paper into the boy’s hands; Finlay swiftly hid it under the blanket of his cot. When he was alone once more, he opened the note and read it. It said:

  Last-minute escape

  Finlay spent the rest of the time tearing the note into the tiniest possible shreds and spreading them around the floor of the cell.

  At five minutes to eleven, they came for him. The two guards flanked him, and the warden took up the rear. The chaplain was permitted to walk beside him all the way to the green metal door at the end of the corridor. Just before they entered the room, with its silent audience of reporters and observers, the chaplain bent toward him and whispered:

  “You’ll be meeting Willie soon.”

  Finlay winked and allowed the guards to lead him to the chair. As they strapped him in, his features were calm. Before the hood was dropped over his face, he smiled.

  After the execution, the warden asked to see the chaplain in his office.

  “I suppose you heard about Finlay’s accomplice, Willie Parks. He was shot and killed this afternoon.”

  “Yes, I did. Rest his poor soul.”

  “Strange, how Finlay took it all so calmly. He was a wild man before you started working on him. What did you do to that boy, chaplain?”

  The chaplain put his fingertips together, his expression benign.

  “I gave him hope,” he said.

  Grief Counselor

  by Julie Smith

  I started to give Sidney Castille my usual rappity-rap. “This is Jack Beatts,” I said, “with the Grief Protection Unit of the county coroner’s office...”

  That was as far as I got before he hung up.

  Sidney’s wife, Dawn, had died two days before in a freak accident. He’d found her with a broken neck and her copy of Vince Mattrone’s 30-day Yoga Actualizing Plan lying on the floor beside her. It was open to the section on headstands.

  I’d called him because it was my job. After the death certificates are signed, they’re sent to me or one of the other grief counsellors so we can get in touch with the victim’s families.

  As soon as Sidney hung up, I knew he was out of touch with his feelings. He was in the first phase of the grief cycle — what we psychologists call the stage of “disbelief and denial.” He was refusing to deal with death.

  That’s normal and that’s okay, but I wanted Sidney to know he had alternatives. I had things I could share with him. So I decided to pay him a visit.

  I meditated a few minutes to get myself centered and then I drove my Volkswagen over to Sidney’s house on Bay Laurel Lane. It was a typical northern California redwood house set back from the road in a grove of eucalyptus. Smoke was coming out of the chimney.

  As I got closer, I could see the living room through sliding glass doors that opened onto a deck. Several cats prowled in the room like tigers in a forest. Dozens of plants hung from the ceiling and took up most of the floor space as well. There was nothing to sit on but oversized cushions.

  On the far wall of the room was a fireplace with a pile of books in front of it. A man was squatting there, burning the books, feeding them one by one into the fireplace.

  “Sidney?” I said. “I’m Jack Beatts from...”

  “Oh, yes, the man from the coroner’s office.”

  He let me in and waved me to a cushion, but he didn’t seem pleased about it. In fact, he went right back to feeding the fire.

  “Sidney,” I said, “I’m going to be up front with you. When you hung up, I sensed I’d better get over here right away.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I guess I panicked when you said ‘coroner’s office.’ ”

  “A lot of people are uptight about that. But I’m going to ask you to forget about the bureaucracy and just be open with me.”

  “I guess we may as well get it over with.” He put a copy of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones in the fireplace and turned around to face me. A tear rolled down each cheek.

  “That’s it, Sidney,” I said. “Flow with it. Experience your feelings.”

  “You talk like Dawn.”

  “I know how it is, Sidney. Everything reminds you of her, doesn’t it? But that’s okay at this stage. I don’t want you to be negative about it.”

  “Negative!” he snorted. “What am I supposed to...”

  “I’ll bet those are Dawn’s books you’re burning.” He nodded. “And it looks like you’re about to take the cats to the pound. You’re getting rid of everything that reminds you of Dawn, aren’t you?”

  Tears came into his eyes again. “I couldn’t take it any more, Mr. Beatts. I never should have married her in the first place.”

  “I know where you’re coming from, Sidney. You felt inadequate because you were a lot older than Dawn, right?”<
br />
  “She was twenty-two,” he said, “and looking for a Daddy. A rich daddy. And I was just lonely, I guess. I picked her up hitchhiking on my way out here from Ohio after my first wife died.” He winced. “But she died of natural causes.”

  “Death is natural, Sidney. I mean life is a circle, you know? I want you to choose to recognize that. And if burning books is what’s happening for you, I don’t want you to feel guilty behind it. Just acknowledge that it’s okay.”

  “Look, are you going to take me in or what?”

  “Take you in? Oh, you mean to the Grief Center.”

  “Is that what they call it in California?”

  “For sure. We can rap anywhere you like if the vibes are wrong here.”

  “What is a vibe, Mr. Beatts? If I heard Dawn use that word once I...”

  “Now stay loose, Sidney. I hear what you’re saying and I sense you’re uptight behind it. You couldn’t relate to Dawn’s lifestyle, right?”

  He began picking up cats and taking them to the carriers on the deck. I didn’t want to blow the energy we had going, so I followed along beside him.

  “She was all caught up in what they call the human potential movement,” he said. “Transactional analysis, transcendental meditation, self-actualization, bioenergetics, biofeedback...”

  “She must have been a heavy lady.”

  “She talked funny. Like you. And she cooked things like wheat germ soufflé. And she wanted the house to be ‘natural.’ You couldn’t go to sleep without a cat curled around your neck, or a spider plant tickling your nose. It got so every time I saw her do that crazy yogurt...”

  “Yoga.”

  He closed the last carrier and we went back into the house.

  “I used to call it yogurt to annoy her,” he said, squatting by the books again. “Anyway, when she started to stand on her head, she’d do it first with her feet against the wall and then she’d let go of the wall and stick her legs up in the air. Well, every time I saw her with her feet like that, getting little toeprints all over the paint, I’d think how easy it would be just to grab her and...” He stopped.

  “And what?”

  “And snap her neck.”

  I nearly clapped him on the back I was so relieved. At last he’d gotten his energy flowing in a positive way! “I have to acknowledge you, Sidney,” I said. “It’s really a far out thing to see someone being so open about his fantasies.”

  Sidney tried to speak, but he couldn’t. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. Sometimes you have to hurt people to help them so I took a chance.

  “You killed her, didn’t you, Sidney?” I said.

  He kept his eyes down as he put the handkerchief back in his pocket. “You knew all along,” he said finally.

  “For sure,” I said supportively. “Self-recrimination is very common in the first stage of the grief cycle, and I want you to know that it’s okay.”

  “Okay?” he said. “I don’t understand.”

  “A lot of people get on that kind of trip when something like this happens. You and Dawn weren’t getting along and you feel guilty about it now, right? You think she died because of something in your karma.”

  The way Sidney looked at me I could tell he was surprised. He didn’t really expect anyone else to understand. He started to speak, but I stopped him.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “You know? Because it’s only the first part of the cycle. You know what’s next? Personality reorganization! Sidney, you’ve got a really positive thing to look forward to.”

  Sidney sat down on one of the cushions and started to laugh. It doesn’t happen often that somebody really flashes on the whole cycle like that, and it was a far out thing to see.

  “Mr. Beatts,” he said. “I don’t remotely understand where you’re coming from...”

  “Don’t try, man.”

  “But I think I can flow with it.”

  The Best Place

  by A. F. Oreshnik

  Dr. Jason Whitney saw the two federal agents enter the crowded restaurant. Their rumpled suits and stubble-covered cheeks betrayed the fact that they had been too busy to think of appearances for some time. They moved wearily toward him along the line of booths against the wall, looking for an empty one. When they reached the booth where the young doctor was sitting alone, he spoke to the agent he recognized, a deceptively soft-looking man in his forties.

  “Hello, Tom. Have a seat.” He indicated the place opposite him with a sweep of his hand. “There probably aren’t any empty booths at this hour. A lot of people stop here for breakfast on their way to work.”

  Tom Campbell slid heavily into the booth and was followed by his look-alike companion. “I’d like you to meet my partner, Joe Moffet, Dr... Dr...” Campbell snapped his fingers, trying to dislodge the name from his memory.

  “Whitney. Jason Whitney,” the doctor offered with a smile, not the least offended at not being remembered.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Campbell acknowledged with a nod as Joe Moffet and the young doctor clasped hands briefly.

  “You men look like you’ve had a hard night,” the doctor said.

  “You can say that again,” Campbell answered. “We haven’t been out of our clothes in two days. Just brought a man back from Spain.”

  “Extradition?”

  Campbell gave a wry smile. “You could call it that. Our man was staying in Andorra, that little postage-stamp country on the border between Spain and France. They’d have let him stay there until his money ran out, which would’ve taken a couple of thousand years or so. We have no treaty with them.”

  “So what happened?”

  “The usual. We pretended we’d lost interest in him and waited for him to get careless. When he made the mistake of taking a walk too close to the Spanish border, we were ready. Next thing he knew, Joe and I each had one of his arms and were marching him past the Spanish customhouse. We tossed him into a car and rushed him to a plane we had waiting at one of our bases. The Spanish authorities pretended they didn’t see a thing.”

  “Seems like a lot of trouble and expense over just one man,” Dr. Whitney said.

  “It was Henry Hammond.” Campbell had a touch of pride in his tone.

  A waitress came to take their breakfast orders. As soon as she was gone, the doctor repeated the name. “Henry Hammond... It does sound a bit familiar. Should I know the name?”

  “He’s the big-shot financier who jumped bail and skipped the country a couple of years ago. He’d built himself an empire, using phony balance sheets and illegal manipulations. He got away with just about every nickel from his companies’ treasuries.”

  “Oh, yes, now I remember. It made quite a splash in the papers at the time. What did you do with him?”

  “Dropped him off at your place ten minutes ago,” Campbell said.

  The second agent, Joe Moffet, had been sitting quietly, but now he twisted his face into a puzzled expression and said, “Huh?”

  Campbell turned to him. “The doctor is in charge of the infirmary at the Federal House of Detention on West Street,” he explained. “He’ll probably be giving our friend a physical examination today.”

  “I check all new prisoners,” Dr. Whitney agreed.

  The waitress returned with their orders. They didn’t say much until they had settled back to enjoy their coffee. Then the conversation returned to Henry Hammond.

  “Do you think he’ll return the money he stole?” the doctor asked.

  “That’s something you’ll have to ask Hammond. We couldn’t get a word out of him all the way across the Atlantic. He probably has it safely stashed away in a couple of dozen Swiss banks. One thing’s sure — no one will ever see it again unless he wants them to.”

  “I wonder what makes a man decide to be a criminal?” the doctor mused.

  Campbell shrugged. “Who knows? People don’t always do the things you’d expect, or fit into patterns the way you think they should. Take yourself, for instance. What’s a bright
young guy like you doing in the Public Health Service? There’s no military draft anymore, so you didn’t choose it as an alternative service the way doctors and dentists have in the past. I’ll bet you could have had your pick of the private hospitals.”

  “Yes, I probably could have, but I’m happy where I am. I think it’s the best place for me. If I didn’t, I’d go somewhere else or do something else. That’s the way you feel about your job, isn’t it, Tom? That active police work is the best occupation for you?”

  “You certainly have Tom figured out,” Joe Moffet said. “And you put it into words better than he does, too. He’s turned down two promotions in the last year. He could have a comfortable desk job in D.C., but he prefers to transport fugitives. Everyone thinks he’s crazy, but he says he’s happy where he is.”

  They exchanged small talk for a few more minutes, then left the restaurant together. They paused to say good-bye on the sidewalk outside, and Tom Campbell’s face clouded with confusion and embarrassment. “I’m terribly sorry. Doctor, but I — uh — I’ve forgotten your name again.”

  Jason Whitney smiled. “That’s all right. You’d be surprised how many people have trouble remembering me. The next time you’re at the House of Detention stop by my office to say hello. I always have a pot of coffee on the hot plate.” He turned to the other agent. “That goes for you, too, Mr. Moffet. Stop in any time. It’s been nice meeting you.”

  Jason Whitney waited until ten that morning before having Henry Hammond called to the infirmary. He chose that time because the morning sick call had been taken care of by then, and his assistants were enjoying a coffee break.

  “Good morning, Mr. Hammond. I’m Dr. Whitney, the Chief Medical Officer here. I’m in charge of the health and physical well-being of you and the other prisoners. It’s my job to examine each new arrival and determine whether or not he’ll require treatment of any kind.”

  Hammond nodded his understanding. He had dark circles under his eyes and stood nervously in the doorway of the infirmary. He clenched and unclenched his right fist in an uneven rhythm, and his eyes swept back and forth, taking in all the cabinets and equipment. It was obvious his sudden arrest and transportation to the United States had been a severe shock.