Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Presents Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense

by Linda Landrigan

  Mr. and Mrs. Takamoku looked at me anxiously when I came back to the living room. I got them to follow me into the hall. “They’re not going to arrest you,” I assured them. “But I need to know who turned over the Go board last week. Is he here today?”

  They talked briefly in Japanese, then Mr. Takamoku said, “We should not betray guest. But murder is much worse. Man in orange shirt, named Hamai.”

  Hamai, or Miyake, as Hatfield called him, resisted valiantly. When the police started to put handcuffs on him, he popped another gelatin capsule into his mouth. He was dead almost before they realized what he had done.

  Hatfield, impersonal as always, searched his body for the microdot. Hamai had stuck it to his upper lip, where it looked like a mole against his dark skin.

  “HOW DID YOU know?” McGonnigal grumbled, after the bodies had been carted off, and the Takamokus’ efforts to turn their life savings over to me successfully averted.

  “He turned over a Go board here last week. That troubled my clients enough that they asked me about it. Once I knew we were looking for the transfer of information, it was obvious that Folger had stuck the dot in the hole under the board. Hamai couldn’t get at it, so he had to turn the whole board over. Today, Folger must have put it in a more accessible spot.”

  Hatfield left to make his top-secret report. McGonnigal followed his uniformed men out of the apartment. Welland held the door for me.

  “Was his name Hamai or Miyake?” he asked.

  “Oh, I think his real name was Hamai—that’s what all his identification said. He must have used a false name with Folger. After all, he knew you guys never pay attention to each other’s names—you probably wouldn’t even notice what Folger called him. If you could figure out who Folger was.”

  Welland smiled; his bushy eyebrows danced. “How about a drink? I’d like to salute a lady clever enough to solve the Takamoku joseki unaided.”

  I looked at my watch. Three hours ago I’d been trying to think of something friendlier to do than watch the Bears get pummeled. This sounded like a good bet. I slipped my hand through his arm and went outside with him.

  ROB KANTNER

  MY BROTHER’S WIFE

  February 1985

  ROB KANTNER made his fiction debut in the pages of AHMM in 1982 with the first of his popular stories featuring Detroit blue-collar P.I. Ben Perkins. Kantner went on to publish The Back-Door Man in 1986 followed by eight other Perkins novels and numerous short stories, for which he has won four Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America. This story is vintage Perkins.

  Don’t blame me for not spotting Marybeth sooner. The bar was crowded, I was on a case, and most people, private detectives included, don’t notice people in places where they don’t expect to see them.

  The case was one of those generally dreary prospective-employee background things. I was with a woman named Angie in a bar called Rushing the Growler, a rompin’ stompin’ burger and beer joint in the city of Frederick, Michigan. Angie was an ex-squeeze of the investigatee. They’d broken up bad, she was eager to talk, and she was a lady who liked her drinks, so I asked her what she’d have.

  “Three-Hole Punch,” she said to the bartender.

  I lighted a cigar and stared into Angie’s dark eyes. “What in heaven’s name is that?”

  She smiled. “The latest thing, Ben. A shot of 151 Bacardi, a shot of dry gin, and a splash of Golden Grain, shaken with pineapple-grapefruit juice over rocks in a tall glass with a maraschino cherry on top.”

  The bartender set it before her. I swear I saw the cubes smoking. No problem loosening her tongue, I thought. I ordered a beer, turned to Angie to begin the casual questioning, and in the far corner of the bar, just visible around the edge of the high back of a booth, I saw Marybeth.

  She sat across from a broad-shouldered young man with short, smooth black hair. They were alone, and they were talking, and they didn’t see me.

  I watched them as I absentmindedly probed Angie for information about my subject, information that, under the terrifying momentum of Three-Hole Punch, she seemed glad to provide.

  As we talked, I considered how perfect Rushing the Growler was for illicit meetings. Loud, crowded, smoky, big booths, lots of little alcoves. I was, after all, here on a somewhat illicit mission myself. The fact that it led to something more personal with Angie—albeit brief—is not important. I could do that. I wasn’t married. Marybeth was. To my brother.

  SINCE I GOT the information I needed from Angie that night, turned in my report the next day, and (not incidentally) got paid, there was no reason for me to go all the way back out to Frederick the next night. But I did anyhow. Marybeth showed up about seven, with her young man in tow. They sat at a secluded corner booth and talked and drank for nearly two hours. She didn’t notice me. I wondered what she’d have done if she had.

  And I wondered what I was going to do about it. For the next couple of days, I made a brave, determined attempt to do exactly nothing. None of your business, Ben. Stay out of it, Ben. Don’t you have enough trouble of your own to handle, Ben? That routine.

  But one thing I’ve never been able to do for very long is kid myself. I know my own cons too well. I’m a nosy bastard is the point. Which is, probably, why I’m a detective. I wondered how other detectives dealt with this kind of situation. Have to bring it up at the next meeting of the Greater Detroit Nosy Bastard Club, private detective division.

  A few nights later, I rolled over to the Ford assembly plant in Wayne. A big lazy moon hung high in the hot, black summer sky as I parked three spaces down from a gleaming, sky blue Ford Econoline van. I nervously smoked a cigar as I waited, leaning against the hood of my Mustang. A bell shrieked from the distant plant, signaling shift-end, and men poured out, fired up their cars, and got the hell out of there. After a couple of minutes my brother, Bill Perkins, came strolling down the lane toward his van. I raised a hand and he nodded and continued toward me, black lunchbox hanging from one hand.

  Bill’s eight years older than me. We don’t look much alike. He’s short, stocky, almost totally bald now, with a narrow face and big nose and squinting eyes. He’s placid of face, calm of voice, a man of slow, totally predictable movements. He wore a green shortsleeved dress shirt, snug slacks, highly polished black loafers. “Hey, Ben,” he said as he reached me.

  “Bill,” I nodded. “Buy you a beer?”

  “Why sure.” I pulled a cold six of Stroh’s off the front seat, snapped two loose, handed him one, and popped mine. Bill set his lunchbox on the hood of the Mustang and opened his beer as I leaned an elbow on the ragtop and took a gulp. “What brings you out this way?” Bill asked.

  Impossible to answer truthfully because I didn’t know myself. I mean, I knew, but I wasn’t going to blab about having seen Marybeth twice in a saloon with a stranger. I was, so to speak, sounding him out. I didn’t know what I expected to get done here, which is a dangerous way to do business. Carole Somers, a trial lawyer acquaintance of mine, says that the cardinal rule of examination is: Don’t ask a question unless you already know the answer.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while,” was my lame answer.

  “Ee-yeah. Couple-three months. We doing Stapfer on the Fourth again, right?”

  “Sure.” This was about the only tradition my family had left. When we were boys, our daddy and Uncle Dan always took us fishing on Stapfer Lake on the Fourth of July, which was a couple of days off now. Bill and I continued the tradition even though Daddy died back in ’63 and Uncle Dan was permanently disabled and living in a rest home (I mean, retirement community). “Uncle Dan coming along?” I asked.

  “Talked to him yesterday,” Bill answered. “Said he’d try.” Uncle Dan hadn’t come with us—had been physically unable to—for fifteen years. But we always invited him, and he always said he’d try.

  I dropped my cigar on the dirty pavement and crushed it out with my boot. Over the rim of my beer can, I eyed my brother as I tipped beer into my mouth. His face
was shrouded in shadow; his bald head gleamed in the moonlight. He leaned silent, placid, solid as a bridge abutment. I groped for words, for the angle that, in my investigating work, usually came easily, and could think of nothing. Bill was my brother, but as adults we were strangers. The few conversations we had over the course of a year fell into well-worn, predictable patterns. Cars and tools and baseball and the old neighborhood, none of which could help me find out what I wanted (not necessarily needed) to know.

  The parking lot was silent now, afternoon men on their fast ride home through the dark, midnight men beginning their shift on the thumping, screaming, hot assembly line inside. Bill broke the silence. “Saw baby sister the other day.”

  He let the unasked question hang in the air. I hadn’t seen Libby in two years, not since our Uncle Andrew died.

  With just the slightest shrug, Bill sipped his beer and went on.

  “Took off a lot of weight. Looking damn good now. She got her a job counseling in one of those weight-loss places. Doin’ good.”

  I set my empty beer can on the ragtop, fetched myself a fresh one and, as I popped it, asked casually, “How’s Marybeth?”

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “Still working that job out there?”

  “City of Frederick police. Right. Just a typist, but the pay’s good. You know them civil service jobs.”

  “Pretty long drive, though.”

  “Oh well, I-94 straight out, not too bad.” Bill drained his beer. “She’s staying out at her sister’s in Jackson for a few days. Having a little visit, drive to work’s a lot shorter from there.”

  Bill absently drummed his empty beer can with his thick fingers. I asked, “’Nother one?”

  “Naw, better roll, Ben. Thanks.” He handed me his empty, picked up his lunchbox, and headed toward the Econoline with that slow, rolling walk that reminded me so much of Daddy. Over his shoulder he called, “The landing at Stapfer. The Fourth, six A.M. sharp. Got it?”

  “Yeah, bro.” I gathered up the empties, tossed them into the back of the Mustang, and got out of there.

  Driving through the hot night, I thought about Marybeth staying at her sister’s in Jackson. A visit? Or had she left Bill? Or had he thrown her out? And what about the guy she was meeting at Rushing the Growler? What the hell gives here, anyhow?

  It was none of my business, but it didn’t feel right. I’d have to look into it, keep an eye out, and if something needed fixing, I’d sure God have to fix it.

  IT WASN’T LIKE I was between jobs and had nothing better to do. My big corporate client had six more job applicants who needed checking out, at five hundred per, cash money. Carole Somers had called that morning about a client in Wayne County jail, charged with murder, thought maybe I could help. The outdoor maintenance work at Norwegian Wood was getting pretty intense, this being the height of the summer, lot of work to schedule and ass to kick. But I did as little as I could get away with the next day, drove like hell to Frederick during the supper hour, and by dusk, about the time Marybeth arrived with her Mister Wonderful, I was ready.

  My battered old Canon, loaded with a fresh roll of twelve-hundred-speed print, worked great. I shot up all ten frames, getting virtually every angle except from directly overhead, as Marybeth and the man leaned close together over the table, talking, laughing, drinking drinks, absorbed in each other. Then I strolled out of there, unobserved by both.

  I WAS BACK the next night, cameraless. I grabbed a stool at one corner of the bar and watched Marybeth and her swain as they went through the routine. The guy must have had a bladder of prodigious capacity, because it seemed like hours before he finally excused himself and went to the john. I followed him.

  It was empty except for us. While the guy did his business at the far end, I busied myself combing my hair at the mirror, gambling that he was fastidious enough to wash up after. He was. I let him get his hands full of soapy lather before I said, “Think we can do some business, pal?”

  He hardly glanced at me as he scrubbed. “Buzz off.”

  I shook my head regretfully. “Not good.” I reached into my hip pocket, pulled out the nice, crisp, three-by-five color glossy, and dropped it on the aluminum shelf below the mirror in front of him. “That’s what I’m selling,” I said softly. “You interested?”

  The picture was a tight shot of him and Marybeth, noses inches apart over the rough-hewn booth table in Rushing the Growler. I was quite proud of it. Good focus and composition, sharp and clear, with only available light yet.

  He stopped scrubbing and studied the picture as the water rinsed his hands clean. He was a young fellow, younger than Marybeth—she’s about my age—dark-haired with deep eyes and a thickly muscled, symmetrical, almost handsome face, the skin of which showed five o’clock shadow. He wore a light gray jacket, open-necked white shirt, and dark slacks. His tan could have come from the sun or a lamp, you just can’t tell anymore. He shut off the water and flicked the wet off his hands and straightened to face me. He did not look happy.

  I said: “For shame. See that ring on your finger? No, not the pinky ring, the one on the next finger there. That means you’re married, remember? And so’s she.”

  “What’s your interest?” His voice was a toneless, husky whisper.

  “Not financial, for once. It’s just this. Get off her and stay off, and this goes no further.”

  He nodded, lips pressed tight over his good white teeth. Then he said, “Now I’d like to show you something, friend. I’m going into my inside jacket pocket, real slowly, fingers only. All right?”

  I was unarmed and had made no threats of violence, but I nodded. He reached inside his jacket, came out with a small black wallet, and opened it. The badge gleamed, an embossed picture-ID next to it. Donald Boltz, special agent, Michigan Bureau of Investigation. I said, with more assurance than I felt right then, “That supposed to mean something important?”

  “You know,” he said, “there’s a thing called obstruction of justice. There’s another called interfering with an official investigation. I could mangle you lots of ways, ways you haven’t even heard of yet. You follow?”

  “I’m scared to death here. Really I am. So humor me.”

  “I’m on police business,” he answered, closing the wallet and putting it away. “There’s no funny stuff between her and me. Now, if you don’t mind my asking, who in the hell are you?”

  For some deep instinctive reason, probably because he would have died laughing, I did not show him my private detective license. I answered, “Ben Perkins. I’m her brother-in-law.”

  Boltz stared at me. Then he dumped his head back and laughed at the ceiling, even white teeth gleaming in the fluorescent light. I stood impassively, hands folded in front of me, wanting badly for some reason to hit him very hard. When he recovered, he mused, “Isn’t that a riot? Out-of-the-way place like this … no suspicious eyes … her brother-in-law!”

  “Yeah. Real thigh-slapper. What I’d like to know is, why is the MBI interested in Marybeth?”

  He still smiled, but the humor had fled his eyes. “I don’t have to waste my time explaining anything to you. She’s your brother’s wife, so fine, I’ve explained there’s nothing personal going on and that’s all you need to know.” Boltz’s jaw tightened. “Don’t cross my path again. I get upset really easily.”

  He walked past me, brushing intentionally close, to the door and then out without looking back. I stared at the space he’d left, remembering his casual yet high-quality and expensively tailored suit, his six-hundred-dollar lizard-skin shoes, the gold pinky ring with diamond chips. For a policeman, Special Agent Donald Boltz seemed to pull down an abundance of disposable income.

  DICK DENNEHY studied the picture through his aviator glasses. He snorted. “So. One of the glamour boys.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  Dennehy stared at me bleakly. He’s a big, somewhat out of shape, grayish blond, wound tight with the cheerful malevolence of the career cop. He wore a gray
suit—I believe he buys them by the gross at K-Mart—and the inevitable Lucky straight-end smoldered from the fingers of the hand in which he held the picture. We sat in a booth in Pringle’s, the Novi saloon where we met once a week to straighten out the world.

  Dennehy, eyes still on me, dropped the picture. “Glamour boys,” he repeated. “I’m with the state police, remember? We’re the ones who get called in on cases after these glamour-boy clowns with the ‘Michigan Bureau of Investigation’”—he snarled the name—“screw them up.”

  “I get the picture.” The barmaid expertly dropped another Signature and rum-and-Coke on our table. “Thanks, Cindy,” I said absently. “So,” I said to Dick as he took a pull from his drink, “since apparently you state police boys don’t get along with the MBI, can I assume there’s no way you can find out what—or if—Boltz is investigating that involves Marybeth?”

  Dick made a gleeful, crooked smile. “O ye of little faith! Sure I can, my spies are everywhere. Be glad to.” He slipped the picture into his jacket pocket, fired up another weed, leaned forward on his elbows, and asked quietly, “You think he’s doing the dirty deed to her?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, Dick.”

  “What’ll you do if it turns out he is?”

  “Don’t know that, either.”

  “Huh. Now that we’re clear on what you don’t know, tell me: what do you know, Ben?”

  “I know what I feel. I feel like Boltz is a bad act. I got a real bad smell from him. I don’t trust him—I don’t trust much of anything anymore—but I trust that feeling.” I stared over his shoulder at the window that fronted the place. “I feel like I have to watch out for Marybeth at this point.”

  “You don’t mind my saying so, I didn’t think you and your family were particularly close.”

  “We’re not.” I met his eyes. “But you still watch out for them.”