100 Malicious Little Mysteries

by Isaac Asimov

  Some weeks later a rider drew rein at the spot where a small mound of stones, wrenched from the rib cage of the hill, marred the otherwise featureless aspect of the plain. He dismounted slowly, tethered his horse to the pine, and took down from the back of the saddle a board attached to a stake.

  He worked with one hand. His right arm hung down, and swung loosely when he walked. A raw scar the color of fresh liver began at his temple, ran down the side of his jaw, under an ear, and disappeared beneath his collar. From time to time he stopped to rest, hunkered on his heels with his good hand pressed to his side under the nerveless arm. He had to prop up the stake with stones in order to drive the sharpened stake with a piece of rock held in his left hand.

  When he was finished he rolled a cigarette, spilling two papers of tobacco down his shirt front before he succeeded. It hung unlighted in his mouth. He fished for a match but found none. It took him a long time to reach into his right-hand pants pocket with the good arm. The unsmoked cigarette still dangled from his lips when he rode off.

  The section of the Wyoming territory where the men dug their pit is on the edge of the upper Sonoran continental life zone of North America. It is dry country, but it is almost on the verge of the Transitional zone. Sometimes rain washes the sage and the air has a clean sharp bite in the nose. You might come on the grave in the morning after just such a spring rain. Small bright blossoms of wildflowers will spangle the brown sod between the jagged rocks of the hillside.

  Wood seldom rots in this dry land. If you ever find this lonely spot, you will still be able to read the legend carved into the weathered board nailed across the stake:

  LAFE THOMAS

  1882

  HE LOST

  Before you leave, be sure to notice how the drops of water on the needles of the little scrub pine catch the sunshine, breaking the light into glass-like shards which pierce the eye, even as a knife might pierce the heart.

  Lot 721/XY258

  by R. L. Stevens

  It takes more than hatred to make a murderer.

  William Willis had hated his wife almost from the day of their marriage seventeen years ago, but the thought of murder had never once crossed his mind. He was quite content to live out the days of his life without complaint, driving to the office each morning, returning each evening, and simply shutting his ears to the constant drone of her voice.

  In her late thirties, Constance Willis had lost almost all the youthful beauty that had first attracted Willis to her in college. She was flabby of body and mind, hardly ever bothering to read a newspaper or pick up a book. Her days were spent in random shopping excursions with girl friends, at a weekly bridge club, and in countless hours on the telephone. But for all his hatred, William Willis had never thought of murder. In fact, he did not even think of divorce until he met Rita Morgan in the apartment downstairs.

  Willis and his wife had no children, so they’d remained for many years in the pleasant garden apartment close to the downtown expressway. It was convenient to his office, and the surroundings had taken on the comfortable feeling of home. The apartment was one of the few things in their marriage that William and Constance agreed on.

  When Rita Morgan moved into the apartment below them, Willis’ evenings and weekends immediately perked up. Rita was a twenty-five-year-old schoolteacher with long blonde hair and the sort of quiet beauty that couldn’t have passed unnoticed even among her fifth-grade pupils. Willis helped her move in, carrying a few cartons of books up from her car, and they became friends immediately. She was everything he’d seen in Constance seventeen years before. But more important, she was intelligent and witty.

  “Were you down in Rita’s apartment again?” Constance asked one Saturday afternoon.

  “One of her faucets was leaking,” he explained. “It only needed a new washer.”

  “There’s a janitor to take care of those things.”

  He sighed and opened a beer for himself. “You know she’d have to wait a month before he’d get around to it.”

  Constance grunted, but he knew she was unhappy about his attentions to Rita Morgan. She need not have worried quite so much, for Rita was a virginal young lady — at least as far as Willis was concerned — who treated him only with neighborly good will.

  Nevertheless, it was Rita’s presence on the scene that came first to Willis’ mind when he read in the afternoon paper about the food contamination. A twelve-year-old boy had died of botulism in Chicago after eating canned peaches that had been improperly sterilized. As a rule, peaches were rarely affected by botulism, but these had been processed in a special manner, making them more susceptible to the deadly spores.

  Reflecting on the blind fate that had killed the boy, he could not help speculating on a similar fate befalling Constance. Driving home that night, his recent daydreams of divorce and marriage to Rita shifted focus. Now he imagined Constance dead, killed by some trick of fate like an automobile accident or contaminated food.

  Constance did not mention the news of the botulism scare, and it passed from his mind for the night. She kept up so little on current events that he’d often had to explain at length some happening on the foreign scene or some new face on the political horizon. Her interest in events, and in people other than her own circle of friends, had virtually ceased the day she left college to marry Willis.

  But he was reminded again of the canned peaches when one of the secretaries at the office mentioned it. The afternoon paper had further details, including word that all of one lot was being recalled by the canner. Can o’ Gold Fancy Prepared Peaches, lot 721/XY258.

  Then the daydreams returned. He knew Constance ate canned peaches during the summer, often having them as part of her dessert. And he knew that she sometimes bought the Can o’ Gold brand.

  He poured over the newspapers that afternoon, even walking three blocks to a store where he knew he could buy a Chicago paper. He read more about the boy’s death, and about the deadly effects of botulism poisoning, and the fantasy continued to grow in his mind. By the evening paper all Can o’ Gold fruit products were being recalled, and consumers were being warned to avoid lot 721 /XY258.

  That evening at home, while Constance chatted on the telephone with some friend, William Willis glanced over the cupboard shelves, inspecting the canned goods. There were two cans of peaches, and one of them was Can o’ Gold. His heart skipped a beat as he peered in at the lot number embossed on the lid. It was lot 721/XY258. Studying it more closely, he noticed that the can was bulging a trifle — an almost certain sign of gases produced by the bacterial activity inside.

  There, standing on a shelf in the cupboard, was one of the deadly cans of peaches.

  He said nothing to Constance, but that night in bed the possibilities paraded through his mind. All he had to do was say nothing, and sooner or later Constance would eat the contaminated peaches and die of botulism. Everyone would be most sympathetic. No one would suspect a thing.

  And William Willis would be a free man.

  He rolled over on his side and gazed into the darkness, thinking of Rita Morgan downstairs.

  On his way out in the morning he saw Rita washing her car with a hose. “Hello, there,” he called out. “I didn’t think teachers ever got up this early in the summertime.”

  “I’m going on a picnic,” she answered, beaming a smile his way. “Trying to get some of the dirt off this thing first.”

  “If I didn’t have to go to work I’d help you out.” He stood chatting with her for another few moments, until he noticed Constance watching them from an upstairs window. “Gotta be going,” he said finally. “Be seeing you.”

  That day in the office he tried not to think about it. But after lunch, while reading the latest newspaper account of the can recall, he let the idea of murder cross his mind.

  If Constance died from eating those peaches, was he guilty of murder?

  No, no — he refused to accept that. He had not even touched the can. Constance had purchased it, Cons
tance would open it, Constance would eat it — possibly during the day when he wasn’t even at home. How could it be his fault?

  Accident. Or death by misadventure, as the British liked to say. But certainly not murder.

  William Willis went back to work and tried not to think of the can of peaches waiting on the shelf for Constance.

  When he got home that evening the first sight that greeted him was Constance sitting at the kitchen table eating peaches and ice cream.

  “Won’t that spoil your dinner, dear?” he asked a bit stiffly.

  “It’s too hot to cook dinner in the apartment. I thought we might just go out for a sandwich later. All right?”

  On any other night he might have grumbled, but this evening he simply said, “Sure,” and walked behind her back to the cupboard. The Can o’ Gold peaches were still on the shelf. She was eating the other brand.

  They talked very little that night and for the first time in many years he found himself getting through the hours with Constance without feeling the old hatred. When they returned from dinner, Rita came upstairs to borrow some milk, and Constance greeted her in a friendly fashion and even invited her in for coffee. Willis went to bed that night feeling good.

  The feeling persisted the next day at the office and he wondered if he might be mellowing toward Constance. He made a point of buying the New York and Chicago newspapers, where the story of the botulism scare was still very much alive on the inner pages. One paper carried a detailed account of the boy’s death agonies, of the gradual impairment of various parts of his brain until finally he simply stopped breathing. Willis read it grim-lipped, imagining Constance as she might be during those long hours of dying.

  He grabbed the telephone and dialed his home number, but the line was busy. She was chatting with a girl friend again.

  His hands were trembling when he put down the phone, and he knew he must get a grip on himself. He’d been only an instant from warning her, from telling her of the contaminated can and thereby revealing the dark presumptions that had run through his mind. He must control himself. He was not a murderer. He was not even an instrument of chance.

  And yet — if Constance died would he ever be able to look at himself in a mirror again? Would he ever be able to love Rita Morgan without the memory of Constance’s death to haunt them?

  He picked up the phone and dialed his number again. The line was still busy.

  “I have to go home,” he told his secretary. “Emergency.”

  He got the car out of the lot and headed for the expressway. It was nearly midafternoon and he knew she sometimes had her peaches about this time of the day. The drive home seemed longer than it had ever been at rush hours. Driving fast, almost recklessly, he imagined finding her stretched out dead on the kitchen floor — even though he knew from the newspaper articles that botulism took several hours to show its first symptoms.

  He turned into the drive next to the apartment house and parked in his usual spot. The second-floor window of his apartment seemed the same, the place itself seemed unchanged. Perhaps he’d made the drive for nothing, and he’d have to explain it to Constance. And somehow get that can out of the house.

  “Dear! I’m home early!”

  There was no answer and he went into the kitchen seeking her. The first thing he saw was the open, empty, discarded can of Can o’ Gold Fancy Prepared Peaches by the sink. That, and an empty dish, with its dirty spoon and telltale juices.

  “Constance!”

  She appeared then, coming from the bathroom. Her face was pale and somehow a little strange. “What are you doing home?” she asked.

  “I wasn’t feeling well.”

  “Oh.”

  “Constance, did you eat those peaches?”

  She glanced at the empty dish and the discarded can by the sink. Then her eyes met his and there was something in them he’d never seen before.

  “Oh, no, dear. That nice Miss Morgan came up to borrow something, and she stayed and chatted, and I persuaded her to have a little snack.”

  Thirteen

  by Edward D. Hoch

  Renger looked up from the crude map on the table before him and studied the newcomer with critical eyes. “You’re Hallman?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They tell me you’re a good man with a gun.”

  “I get by.”

  “Then I guess you’re the man we need for this job. Ever used an automatic carbine?”

  “Plenty of times.”

  “Like this one?” Renger asked, bringing out a new Plainfield carbine very much like the standard military weapon. “It uses thirty-shot clips. All right?”

  “Fine.” Hallman glanced around at the five other men in the room. The only one he knew was Asmith, a part-time heroin pusher who’d been in and out of prison. He nodded to him and waited for Renger to introduce the others.

  “That’s Crowthy and Evans and Asmith and Galliger and Yates. A damn good team for this job. But we needed a good man with a gun — somebody who’s not afraid to use it.”

  “That’s me,” Hallman said. He had earned the reputation.

  “Good! We’ll have smoke bombs and stuff, but I’m not kidding myself that we’re going to get in there without killing a few people.”

  “What about guards?” Hallman asked. “And patrol cars?”

  Renger pushed back his graying hair and stabbed at the map with a pencil. “The only guard you need to worry about is right here. Take him out and it’s smooth sailing. Now, a patrol car comes down this street about once every hour. We’re timed to miss it, but we can’t be sure. All I can tell you is that Crowthy here will be covering you from across the street. If the patrol car surprises us, you’ll have to deal with it.”

  “I understand,” Hallman said.

  “Your job is to take out this guard, get into the place, and fire a few shots. Create confusion. Make them think we’ve got a whole army out here. Then I’ll toss a few smoke bombs and the rest of us will move in.”

  Asmith spoke up from his corner. “What about the getaway?”

  “We’ll leave the truck at this point and go the rest of the way on foot. Afterwards each of you will have to get back to the truck on your own. Evans will stay with the truck as a lookout. But at ten o’clock we pull out. Anyone not back to the truck by ten, we figure they’re caught. Any questions?”

  As they went over the plan step by step, Hallman found his attention wandering. He was twenty-four years old, and already he had the reputation of being good with a gun. Anyone who bothered to check his record would know he was equally good with a knife. The first man he’d ever killed had been with a knife, and he still remembered the expression of shock in the man’s eyes as Hallman’s blade slid deep between his ribs.

  That was the way it had been the other times, too, though he remembered that first one best of all. Sometimes he had not even seen the men he’d killed. They’d merely been figures to be gunned down at a distance, or sometimes men to be blown up in their beds by a well-tossed bomb. And people knew that Hallman was an expert. They came to Hallman when the killing had to be neat and swift and efficient.

  “All right,” Renger said. “It’s set, then. We go at dawn.”

  The men nodded silently and left the room. There was very little conversation, and Hallman was glad of that. He was not much of a talker.

  The early morning was usually best for a job of this sort, Hallman had discovered. It was especially good if you could hit a place just a few minutes before eight, when people were arriving for the day’s work. The patrol cars were generally off the road then, too, changing crews for the day tour.

  This morning was especially good, because a light mist from the river hung over the streets of the town. Evans had parked the truck an hour earlier, and they’d come the rest of the way on foot, moving singly to avoid attracting attention. The town was quiet, with only a few people moving about, when Hallman poked his head around a tree across the street from their target.
r />   The first thing he saw was the uniformed guard by the gate. He seemed to know everyone who entered, though occasionally he glanced at a pass when it was held out to him. The bolstered revolver at his side presented no difficulty to Hallman, who could have, if necessary, killed the man from across the street.

  Hallman broke from cover and walked directly toward the guard, carrying the carbine casually in his left hand, pointed at the ground. The man didn’t notice him until he was almost up to him, and then the guard’s hand dropped uncertainly to the bolstered revolver. “You need a pass here,” he said. “A pass.”

  Hallman smiled and kept walking toward the man, as if he didn’t understand the language. When he was close enough he brought his right arm up quickly to the guard’s throat, plunging his knife deep into the flesh. The man went down with the gurgling sound they always made. Already, before the guard hit the ground, Hallman swung his automatic carbine up to cover the doorway ahead of him, and that was almost a fatal mistake.

  From behind him he heard Crowthy shout a warning, and he whirled to see the patrol car traveling fast down the street. They’d already spotted him and screeched to a stop. Crowthy fired a quick wild shot and retreated toward the woods. Two officers jumped out of the car and one of them fired three rapid shots at Crowthy’s retreating back. Hallman saw him topple in the dirt as Hallman brought his own weapon up. He fired a quick burst, dropping one officer in his tracks as the other dived behind the patrol car. A third man, the driver, started out his side and then fell back, bleeding from the shattered windshield.

  Hallman moved backward into the building, firing as he went, and saw the second officer fall over. Then he was inside, running down a dingy hallway, ramming another 30-shot clip into the weapon. He hoped the others would be coming soon.