AHMM, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  As she turned, Aoi caught the desolate glance of the princess, left alone with her fullness of the throat and intently pulling apart the hem of her sleeve.

  * * * *

  Several days later the peace of a sunny mid morning was riven by a scream. Everyone dashed toward the sound and found the princess on her knees beside her document chest, scrolls, books, and long narrow boxes spread across the floor.

  "Someone has taken the most valuable thing I possess!” she cried, fluttering her fingers in the air, as if she thought to settle finally on the proper box, if only she could lay her hand on it.

  "The fan of the Old Emperor?” Aoi breathed. Everyone in the city knew of this treasure, which had been a special gift from her father when she left his mansion to live in her own house as a married woman. It was impossibly ancient, with a signed poem on fragile painted paper and a speckled bamboo frame. It had come down in the family of the princess's father for thirteen generations and was shown only at the New Year, and then only to those whose families owned articles of equal antiquity and value.

  "That boy!” the princess said. “He was running away the night of the storm, running directly into the house!"

  Aoi suppressed her protests, unable to justify her belief that the boy was not a thief. Firm ideas about the character of a very young man would not be welcome.

  The prince came and managed to get the accusation against the boy confined within the house, sternly warning the servants, who understood that discretion was always required of them. No one had seen the young man inside, but the princess reminded them that the boy had been running back into the house that night. She insisted that with the storm he could have entered, and that a fine big lacquered chest was the first place he would look. It was just bad luck that the wooden box his hand fell on was the one containing an ancient royal fan. Aoi thought of how the boy had said that he would have resources, and she could see that the prince also remembered that boast, but neither one mentioned it to the princess.

  Very discreetly, the prince made inquiries and found that, indeed, this son of a minister had been recently unstable, disrespectful to his father and threatening to leave the family and offer himself for adoption to a man who had no sons. The boy himself, because of his prominent father, was not approached. He continued his service at the palace. Investigations there confirmed that he showed no change of manner and had not missed reporting as expected, that he was indeed young, but that he adapted quickly, and that there were no complaints against him.

  One of the secretaries from the palace moved among known collectors and was not told of any item of extreme value offered to them recently. The collectors, however, perked up their ears and wondered what might be coming on the market soon.

  Days passed. The princess spoke by turns with apathy, scorn, bitterness, impatience, fear. The prince, since the night of the storm, lived in her house and tried to console her, while refusing to believe that the thief was the son of an old friend. This attitude did not make the princess as angry and despairing as Aoi thought it would have in other times. Their manner to each other was never of even temper, rocketing from storm to indifference to peace and back around again. For now, all expression of feeling seemed to be in abeyance and there was an uneasy truce.

  * * * *

  Aoi became very thoughtful. She suggested to the prince that he needed a new summer robe and that the dying and cutting should begin soon, so as to have it ready by the time of hot weather.

  On a day that was warm and breezy, Aoi suggested to the princess that they do the dying. The fullness of throat that had troubled her was no longer mentioned, and grieving for her lost treasure, combined with fear of what her father would say when told that it was gone, made full occupation for the princess. She sat straighter, making motions of negation. “No, no. I don't feel like it now. Surely you understand that I can't..."

  "It will do you good to be busy. I have already sent for the dyer,” Aoi said, and she moved to the closet where a large wicker box of silk was kept, white bolts of uniform length and width. Lifting it down, she removed the lid and sat looking at the bounty of undyed cloth.

  The princess snatched the lid and tried to replace it. But Aoi, unperturbed, laid her hand on the top rolls and looked at her mistress. “It is odd,” she said, “how life seems to be a series of realizations. Truths tend to pile up as we grow and age, don't you find it so?"

  "Truths?"

  "Yes, little revelations, sometimes simple withholdings. As when a smile is intercepted and we think, ‘Ah, so that is the way it is with that man and that woman,’ and yet, knowing this secret, we say nothing to others. Or when we suddenly learn to stop talking and listen, or that the best thing to do is often nothing and that we should just get out of the way and let events proceed to their conclusion. It is in this way that our character is developed. It seems that we mature through little negatives of removing faults and ignorances. Haven't you found it so?"

  The princess gazed blankly at Aoi, then stirred again to take the box lid. But Aoi, unnoticing, kept her hand on the silk bolts and continued her musing. “Even in such a simple thing as dying, one learns broader lessons. I remember the time I wanted purple. I chose a color I thought would be perfect. But the dyer refused. She shook her head, ‘No, no. You won't like it that way.’”

  "What way?” The princess could not help her interest in Aoi's oblique observations.

  "Why, just that simple color. ‘You won't like it unless you add some brown,’ she said."

  The princess could only peer in puzzlement at Aoi.

  "Think about it,” Aoi said. “The color will please only if it is deepened, enriched, and restrained. One of life's little lessons.” She picked up the top bolt, a smooth weave, too close and dense to be cool. Glancing at the princess, she said, “Shall we look for a more suitable cloth?"

  Ashen in the face and with a frozen expression of apprehension, the princess could not answer.

  "Ah, well,” said Aoi, looking away in pity, “Perhaps it is not a good day after all. I will tell them to send the dyer away.” She took the box lid from limp fingers and pressed it firmly back onto its bottom counterpart. “One must please oneself, after all,” she added in an off-hand voice, “and if we don't choose to dye cloth today...” As was the custom, an obvious thought was left unfinished.

  * * * *

  Next day, the princess sent her husband back to his quarters at the palace, assuring him that she felt well and even thanking him for his patience. “But please, not a word to my father. The fan may yet turn up."

  "Ah, do you think so?” asked her husband. “And why may I not stay with you, now that you are so much ... better?"

  "Go and come back later. You have your new office to establish and assistants to find. They will think you are not serious."

  Never had she sent him away when he wanted to stay. He was intrigued and thought to impose his will. Aoi gave him a silent signal and he left.

  For two days the princess kept to her room, sending back the food trays, refusing wine, and asking Aoi to make tea for her because it was said to be a medicine that fostered meditation. Aoi obliged.

  On the third day, the fan reappeared. Aoi was shown where it had been found, fallen behind a pile of floor cushions that were put away for the summer in the same closet where the fan was kept in the lacquered chest.

  "How could it have gotten there?” the princess said.

  Aoi smiled. Now the box of cloth could be investigated for a bolt of loosely woven silk, now that one abnormally fat bolt would not be discovered under all the rest. A long thin fan box would just fit inside a rerolled bolt of silk.

  Out of long habit, Aoi condensed the situation into poetry.

  Can a wise dyer

  Who knows to add brown for depth

  Be the one to teach

  Restraint? Or is the lesson

  Of purple too dark, too rich?

  Sometimes Aoi found herself weary of women. She longed for the prince
ss's father, for his company and his conversation, for his firm regard, his constancy, his wit and calm intelligence. She was in the habit of sharing with him her observations of life, but she knew that she could not tell him of the lesson his daughter had mastered. She knew also that lessons have a way of being forgotten. She sighed and hoped that the prince would soon return and take advantage of a space of tolerance and calm.

  As for the boy, Aoi decided that she would not help him in his rebellion. He had many lessons to learn, and the first must surely be to rely on his own strength.

  Copyright (c) 2006 Ann Woodward

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  MORE THAN ONE KIND OF MEAN by Ernest B. and Alice A. Brown

  Drew Morrison

  * * * *

  "Rodeo Drive East.” That's what the tour guides and guidebooks think it's cute to call the eight blocks of Newbury Street between the Ritz-Carlton and Capital Grille. But that's okay. We dyed-in-the-wool Bostonians know that Rodeo Drive is really “Newbury Street West."

  Jammed with tourists and throngs of bustling shoppers, this mile-long mecca of swanky shops and posh restaurants is the last place on earth you'd expect to find a working private detective. It's a half century and three thousand miles, another whole world, away from Marlowe's “mean streets.” Then again, there's more than one kind of mean.

  I was standing outside the display window of one of the street's classier shoe stores, nose practically pressed to the glass, coveting a really kick-ass pair of stacked heel knee-highs in soft black leather, when the pager my brand new employers had given me beeped. I dug it out of my bag, checked the display, and mumbled something indecent under my breath. It was the Chic Boutique, the store at the opposite end of my little protectorate, and a full block away. I stuffed the pager back in my bag and, dodging pedestrians like a swivel-hipped broken-field runner, made a dash for the far end of the block.

  The three shoplifting-plagued merchants on this block who had hired me could have hired an off-duty BPD uniformed detail for about the same money, but they were afraid a cop marching up and down in front of their stores would not fit the affable image of Newbury Street. And none of the three was willing to spring for the cost of any sort of full-time in-store surveillance—electronic, warm blooded, or otherwise—so they'd come up with the bright idea to share the expense of hiring a private investigator to cover all three shops as a sort of communal, roving store detective.

  They thought a woman wandering from store to store would draw far less attention than some guy lurking around behind the clothes racks. Sexist? Sure, but true nonetheless. To that end, they'd gone down through the listings for investigators in the Boston phone book from “Amalgamated Investigations” to “V. Dymond, Private Investigator,” before they found a female operative whose rates fit their budget. Valerie Dymond—that would be yours truly—licensed, bonded, and fully insured. Ever vigilant. Shoplifters beware.

  * * * *

  I had sprinted to within ten yards of the Chic Boutique when a woman bolted out through the door of the shop, and the sharp bang of a gunshot from inside the store echoed off the buildings on the other side of the street. In her mad dash, the woman careened off a couple of middle-aged tourists and sent them sprawling in a tangle of baggy blue jeans and orthotic sneakers. She veered out into the street, yanked open the door of a silver Mercedes, slid in behind the wheel, and streaked away from the curb, leaving the stench of burning rubber and a cloud of white smoke in the air.

  I fished the little camera phone out of my bag as I ran, flipped it open as I darted out between two parked cars into the street, and hit the zoom button just as the driver of the delivery truck I had stepped out in front of stood on his brakes and leaned on the horn. I could hear the thud of packages as they flew off shelves in the truck and tumbled around on the floor, but I got a shot of the tail end of the fleeing Mercedes and, with a little luck, the numbers on the license plate.

  I gave the brown-clad truck driver what I hoped was a sweet smile of conciliation, stepped back up onto the sidewalk, and shouldered my way through the crowd that was gathering around the boutique's entrance door.

  I stopped just inside the doorway and stood staring at the shiny leather soles of Earl Peterson's wingtips, slightly splayed and pointed toward the ceiling. Lying there face up with his arms flung out to the side, the Chic Boutique's manager seemed to be floating on his back on the shop's sea green carpet. His conservative gray suit coat was unbuttoned, and a splotch of blood the size of a dinner plate on his white shirt shone wetly with the reflection of the overhead lights. I went in, bent down over Peterson's body, and felt the side of his neck for a pulse. There was none.

  Dan Bittamann, the only other person working in the store that day, was standing in the doorway to the stockroom at the back of the shop with a cell phone in his hand. He was slack jawed and pale, and had the wide-eyed stare of a person in shock.

  "You okay?” I asked him. “Are you hurt?"

  No answer. Just the open-mouthed, million-mile stare.

  I went over and gave his shoulder a gentle shake. “Hey, Dan, you okay?"

  His eyes finally focused. He bobbed his head. “Yeah, I'm okay."

  "You call 911?” I asked.

  He nodded again and jerked his head back toward the stockroom. “Just hung up; used the phone in the back room."

  He took a couple of tentative steps toward Peterson's body. “Is he, is he ... uh?"

  "Yes,” I said. “He's dead. What happened?"

  He just stood there transfixed, staring down at the body.

  "Dan"—a little louder this time—"what happened? Who shot him?"

  He looked up at me and frowned, as though he'd never seen me before. “She had a gun."

  "Who? Who had a gun?"

  "A customer that was in here just now."

  "You mean the woman who ran out the door a minute ago?"

  He nodded.

  "She just walked in and shot him?"

  "No. She was over there—” He turned and pointed off to the left to a display of costume jewelry hanging on a rack against the wall. “—looking at a necklace. She kept that one in one hand, reached up, and took another one off the rack. So while she's holding that one out, you know, like she's admiring it, she drops the one in her other hand into this big shoulder bag she's got."

  "You actually saw her cop the necklace?"

  He nodded again. “I was just coming out of the back room onto the floor. Earl was up front there at the register, and I guess he saw it too, ‘cause he yanked out his cell phone and started punching in numbers."

  "Yeah,” I said, “he was beeping me. Then what?"

  "She snaps her head around, sees Earl glaring at her with the phone in his hand, and takes off running for the door. But Earl comes flying out from behind the counter, steps in front of her, puts his hand out to stop her, and..."

  "Go on, and what?"

  He furrowed his brow and looked down at the floor. “She had a gun in her bag. She took it out and shot him and ran out the door."

  I heard the wail of sirens in the distance.

  Dan heard them too. He glanced up toward the front of the store, then looked down again at Earl Peterson's body. “Well,” he said, “he won't be calling me ‘Danielle’ anymore."

  An odd remark, I thought, even from someone in shock.

  * * * *

  "You sure this is the car?” Sergeant Lenihan was holding my cell phone out to me with the shot of the fleeing Mercedes on the display. “The car you say the woman took off in?"

  Sergeant Detective Lenihan looked like a worn-out beat cop somebody had stuffed into a gray, ill-fitting, summer-weight suit, a wilted blue button-down shirt, and a wrinkled, coffee-stained red tie. He was one of the two responding detectives from the Area G, District 2 station on Appleton Ave.

  I glanced at the phone and nodded. “Uh-huh, that's it. They having trouble tracing the owner?"

  "Oh, they had no trouble finding the owner,” he sai
d, “but I'll bet you're gonna wish they hadn't.” He cupped my elbow in a hand the size of a catcher's mitt and guided me toward the front of the store. “Come on, they want me to bring you back to the shop."

  "The station? How come? And who do you mean they?"

  "The captain and someone he's got there he says wants to talk to you."

  So far the day had been a category five disaster. And I had a feeling it was headed nowhere but downhill from there.

  * * * *

  After Dan had called 911, the first two uniforms to arrive on the scene—sirens wailing, lights flashing—slewed their cruisers up onto the sidewalk, barged through the front door with guns drawn, and made Dan and me “assume the position” against the wall. They took our IDs and, after I'd explained the situation and showed them the digital shot of the fleeing Mercedes, appropriated my cell phone too.

  When the detectives finally arrived, Lenihan, waving his arms and issuing orders, took possession of our IDs, my cell phone, and the compact Beretta I carry in my shoulder bag. A cursory inspection of the fully loaded pistol and a sniff of the barrel would have told the greenest rookie that it hadn't been fired since there was a Democrat in the White House, but Lenihan had it bagged and tagged as possible evidence anyway.

  They had my ID, my phone, and my gun.

  "If you confiscate much more,” I'd told Lenihan, “I'll be standing here in my sneak-sneaks and undies."

  The hard look he'd given me suggested that the only thing the good sergeant might dislike more than a witness cracking wise was a wisecracking lady P.I.

  "You say they hired you to protect them from shoplifters, huh?” Captain Torres was sitting at his desk, looking at a freshly printed crime scene photo of Earl Peterson's body. He tapped the photo three or four times with a nicely manicured finger. “Looks to me like you blew that job big time, Dymond."

  Seated in a caramel-colored leather chair beside the captain's desk, the third person in the glass-walled corner office was a trim and well-tanned gentleman of middle age, wearing a hundred-dollar haircut and a thousand-dollar suit. His demeanor whispered heavy hitter. His attitude screamed lawyer. He was The Honorable Senator William Winthrop Wellington's personal attorney. The Mercedes I'd captured with my camera phone was registered to the senator. It was his wife's car.