AHMM, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Zoë's troubles start with a tax audit and escalate rapidly. A resolutely low-tech private detective, Zoë may not have much overhead, but as she explains with embarrassment to a financial advisor, neither has she had much work lately. Given her precarious financial situation, Zoë is ripe for the unorthodox offer made by the owner of a jewelry store whose losses in a bizarre robbery were somewhat greater than he could admit to the police.

  The result is an adventure written with great flair and dark humor, and a coherent and surprising plot that transports Zoë Boehm into the top rank of female P.I.'s. A highly recommended addition to prospective reading lists.

  Irishman Ken Bruen's rapidly expanding output shows the author to be as much at home in London as in Dublin; wherever his stories are set they are razor sharp. Bruen's prose is muscular and raw, as we saw in his writing about Jack Taylor, an ex-cop in Ireland's elite police force (Garda Siochana) in such memorable novels as The Killing of the Tinkers (St. Martin's Minotaur, 2005).

  * * * *

  * * * *

  Following last year's Vixen, CALIBRE (St. Martin's Minotaur, $12.95), a fast-paced thriller, brings back Detective Sergeant Brant and Chief Inspector Roberts of the Southeast London Police to hunt a serial killer who bumps people off because they are rude. Spare and funny at the same time, Calibre recalls Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series in the way it orchestrates an ensemble of colorful supporting characters; these include a cop on the verge of being dismissed who concocts a dilly of a frame-up to redeem himself, and two cops who participate in an unforgettable “Meet the Kids” in-school performance. And that's without even beginning to describe the antics of the inimitable Brant, who gives new dimension to the term “dirty cop.” Bruen pays homage to earlier noir writers such as Jim Thompson, Cornell Woolrich, Charles Willeford, and McBain while spinning a dazzling tale of a serial killer who's perhaps not as crazy as the cops he's up against.

  Copyright (c) 2006 Robert C. Hahn

  * * * *

  Kelly Braffet's second foray into suspense, LAST SEEN LEAVING (Houghton Mifflin, $23) is the story of one mother's search for her estranged, missing daughter. The daughter, Miranda, is a brooding drifter in her twenties who is picked up along a darkened highway after wrecking her car on the way to work. Her savior, George, is nice but somehow off, in that can't-quite-put-your-finger-on-it kind of way. Given the opportunity, Miranda decides to transplant her life to the resort town where George is headed—the same town where young girls are washing up mutilated on the beach. Soon three months have passed since Miranda's mother, Anne, has heard from her, and Anne sets out to find her apparently vanished daughter. And as George's character reappears again and again, with escalating creepiness, the reader senses that Anne's search is gaining urgency.

  Here the plot is framed as a missing-persons thriller, but as the process of searching for a lost loved one is often no more than a waiting game, Braffet spends most of the novel exploring the concurrent emotional experiences of both mother and daughter, and reveals through lucid flashback how the two women came to be estranged.

  Braffet also homed in on the tensions that can run amok in family relationships in last year's Josie and Jack (Mariner Books, $13), which examined a brother-sister relationship that bordered on psychosis, where the line between sibling love and romantic love often blurred. Braffet's prose is suspenseful and heartfelt, making Last Seen Leaving an engrossing portrayal of one dysfunctional family cast into tragedy.—Nicole K. Sia

  * * * *

  ALL POINTS BULLETIN: Edward D. Hoch's newest collection, MORE THINGS IMPOSSIBLE:THE SECOND CASEBOOK OF DR. SAM HAWTHORNE (Crippen & Landru, $18), came out in paperback in early July. Out since September, THE WIDOW OF SLANE (Carroll & Graf, $16.95), an anthology showcasing the best crime and mystery novellas of 2004, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg, features tales from AHMM alums such as Doug Allyn, Clark Howard, and Steve Hockensmith. Joan Druett's latest mystery at sea, RUN AFOUL ($23.95), was published by St. Martin's Minotaur this October. HIGH HEELS ARE MURDER ($6.99), a Josie Marcus shopping mystery from Elaine Viets, is out in November from Signet Mystery. Bookspan's new imprint Madison Park Press, which publishes titles made available exclusively to members of Bookspan's book clubs, debuted with J. F. Freedman's legal thriller A KILLING IN THE VALLEY last August.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  AHMM CLASSIC THE MIGHTY QUINN by William G. Tapply

  Alice Wolforth wore her long hair in a braid down the middle of her back, and across the distance from my desk to my office doorway it looked blonde and she looked young and scared, like a teenager meeting her boyfriend's parents for the first time.

  "Mr. Quinn?” she said haltingly.

  "Come on in, Mrs. Wolforth,” I said. I swept my hand toward the chair beside my desk.

  She tried a quick smile. It failed. She gave me a little self-deprecating shrug and crossed the room. She was slim, tall, erect.

  "Have a seat,” I said. “Relax. Coffee or something?"

  She shook her head. “No. No, thank you. Nothing."

  Up close I saw that there was more gray than blonde in her hair, and the skin over her high cheekbones and at the corner of her pale green eyes was crosshatched with tiny lines. She hadn't been a teenager for quite a while. I pegged her in her mid-fifties.

  I leaned back in my chair. “So,” I said. “How can I help you?"

  Her small teeth chewed on her bottom lip. She stared down at her hands, which were wrestling with each other in her lap. “I think this is a big fat mistake,” she said softly.

  "Could be,” I said. “Hardly ever is, but it could be."

  She looked up at me. “I guess I will have some coffee."

  I got up and went to the Mr. Coffee machine in the corner. As I stood there with my back to her, pouring two mugs full, I said, “Your husband, is it?"

  "I don't know. Yes."

  I brought back our coffee. She took one of the mugs and held it in both of her hands. She lowered her face to it and sipped.

  I laced my fingers behind my neck and waited.

  "I feel so ... disloyal,” she murmured.

  "But you feel like you've got to know."

  She nodded. “Yes.” A whisper.

  "Not knowing,” I said. “That's what's hard. And if you don't do it, you'll never know. You won't ever be happy again until you know."

  She nodded.

  "But you think it's sleazy, coming to a private investigator."

  "Oh, I didn't mean—"

  I waved my hand in the air. “It's okay. See, Mrs. Wolforth, I think of myself as a social worker. I try to help people with their problems. Now, your problem is not knowing about your husband. As long as you don't know, you're going to be unhappy. Well, my job is to make you happy. Okay?"

  She peered up at me, her mouth still hovering at the rim of her coffee mug. “I can't stand not knowing anymore,” she said. “I hate suspecting him. He's—we've been married for thirty-one years."

  "And this is the first time you've..."

  She smiled quickly. “Oh, yes. It's been quite ... we've got five grandchildren, Mr. Quinn. Thomas has always ... Oh, that old idiot.” She lowered her head and touched her fingers to her cheek, but not before I saw the tears well up in her eyes. She put the mug onto my desk. “I should go right now,” she said.

  "That's fine."

  She stared at me for a moment, then picked up the mug again and took a sip. “No. I've got to know."

  "You could ask him."

  "But that would be like accusing him of lying, you see. He thinks I trust him. Trust has always been important to us. And if I did ask him—accuse him—and he denied it ... do you see? I still wouldn't know. Because I guess I don't trust him. So I've got to..."

  I shrugged. “It's up to you, Mrs. Wolforth."

  "It's easy for you."

  "Yes. Because I know in the long run you'll be happier."

  "You've got women coming
to you all the time, I guess. Needing to know."

  "Men, too,” I said. “About half of them are men."

  "Let's do it, then. What do you need to know?"

  "Why don't you just tell me about it."

  Thomas Wolforth, she told me, sold insurance out of a two-man office in Concord. With the economy down and pressure coming at him from the home office, he'd started making sales calls in the evening. Not every night. Once or twice a week. He wouldn't get home until after she'd gone to bed. As if he was waiting for her to go to bed, she told me, so he wouldn't have to talk to her, to lie to her. After thirty years of marriage, she found she couldn't get to sleep without him beside her, so she always knew when he got back. It had been getting later and later.

  "Why don't you believe him?” I said.

  She shrugged. “I couldn't tell you why. But I know him. It's the way he looks at me sometimes. The way he snuggles against me when he comes home late. Touches my hair, kisses the back of my neck when I'm pretending to be asleep. If I said anything, it would be to ask him where he'd been, and I don't want to hear a lie so I pretend to be sleeping so I don't have to say anything to him."

  He always called when he was going to be late. Alice Wolforth told me she'd let me know the next time it happened. She gave me an envelope with twenty five-dollar bills in it.

  * * * *

  Thursday around four thirty Alice Wolforth called me. “He just called, Mr. Quinn. He told me not to wait up."

  "Okay."

  "Said he's got several calls to make. He's not telling the truth. I heard it in his voice."

  "Well, we'll see,” I said. I hung up, grabbed my jacket, and headed out.

  She had told me that Thomas Wolforth drove a one-year-old gray Taurus wagon. She had given me the plate number. I found the car in the lot behind the office building in Concord Center. I parked two rows from his car and took out the photo she had given me. Steel-gray hair combed straight back, high forehead, dark-rimmed glasses. He was fifty-eight, she had told me. About six feet tall, a little stoop-shouldered. In the photo he was smiling shyly into the camera. Alice Wolforth stood beside him with her cheek on his shoulder. She was smiling, too.

  I spotted him walking toward his car around five thirty. He was carrying a briefcase. He unlocked the Taurus and put the briefcase on the back seat. Then he slid in, started up the car, and pulled out of the lot.

  I let a few cars slip in between us and followed him out of town, onto the highway, and all the way to Cambridge. When he pulled into the parking garage under the Charles Hotel, I kept going. I circled the hotel three times before I went down into the garage. I found his Taurus and left my nondescript Chevy Citation several rows from his. I fished the little hand-sized Olympus 35-millimeter from the glove compartment. It was loaded with super high-speed film that made useful pictures even in the subdued light of a fancy restaurant.

  I took the elevator up to the lobby, glanced around, then climbed the wide stairway up to the lounge. I spotted Thomas Wolforth seated at a corner table sipping what looked like an old fashioned. There were plenty of empty places. I took a table that put me behind his shoulder where I could watch him without craning my neck.

  I ordered a bottle of Heineken.

  I saw her appear at the entry to the lounge, squint into the dim light, spot him, and wave. He lifted his hand about a foot off the table. She smiled, went to his table, and sat beside him. She leaned toward him and kissed his cheek.

  I got that shot.

  She was in her late twenties—about half Alice Wolforth's age. Pretty, if you like the elegant type. Tall, well-built, short black hair. She wore a narrow little navy blue skirt that rode halfway up her thigh when she sat. Under a yellow cardigan sweater was a bone-colored silk blouse unbuttoned far enough to show several gold chains at her throat. She could have been a secretary or a stockbroker or a lawyer, coming over directly from the office.

  The waitress brought her a glass of white wine. The brunette and Wolforth touched glasses. She scooched herself close beside him. I could see her hand snake up onto his leg. I got those shots, too.

  After fifteen or twenty minutes she stood up, touched his mouth with her forefinger, and headed toward the ladies’ room. Thomas Wolforth put some bills on the table. I did the same, got up, and left. I lurked outside the lounge until they came out. They walked past me and started up the stairway. She had her arm around his waist and her head resting against his shoulder. Their hips bumped as they climbed the stairs. I followed discreetly behind them, although I doubt if they were aware of anybody else in the world except each other.

  I got it all on film. I also photographed them entering the room and leaving it two hours later.

  * * * *

  Alice Wolforth called the next day. I told her I followed him as far as Cambridge but lost him in the Harvard Square traffic. She said she knew he had clients in Cambridge, but she didn't sound very convinced.

  On Tuesday she called again. He was going to be late. I said I'd try to do better.

  I got to the lounge before he did this time and was already sipping a beer when he came in. He ordered his old fashioned, and it was nearly a half hour before she came in.

  This time she was a blonde, shorter, less flashy than the brunette, but equally elegant.

  She drank white wine, too.

  They used the same room upstairs.

  I got all the photographs.

  * * * *

  The next time it was a blonde again, but a different one.

  I didn't bother taking any pictures.

  When they came out of the lounge, I stepped forward and said, “Mr. Wolforth?"

  He frowned at me. “Yes?"

  "May I speak to you for a minute, sir?"

  "Who are you?"

  "The name's Quinn.” I handed him my card. It reads, “Quinn: Discreet Investigations.” Phone number. Simple and eloquent.

  He glanced at it, glanced at me, glanced at the blonde.

  "What do you want?"

  I shrugged.

  He stared at me for a minute. Then he fumbled in his pocket and drew out a room key. He handed it to the blonde. “Meet me up there,” he told her.

  She took the key and went up the stairs. Wolforth watched her go, then turned to me. “Okay, Mr. Quinn. What is it?"

  "Pretty nice,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of the blonde.

  He didn't say anything.

  "I thought the brunette was the best looking of the bunch, though,” I said. “I'm partial to brunettes, myself."

  "Look—"

  "Consider me a social worker, Mr. Wolforth,” I said. “People come to me with their problems, and I try to solve them. I like to see people happy. If I can make people happy, I figure I've done my job, and the world's a better place. Understand?"

  He cocked his head and frowned at me.

  I took out the photographs of the brunette and the first blonde and dealt him the one off the top. He squinted at it, then looked at me. I nodded.

  We dickered a little, standing there outside the lounge. I settled for five grand cash for the negatives and prints. We also agreed to certain other considerations.

  We met at the lounge at the Charles Hotel the next afternoon and completed the transaction. He was a gentleman the whole way. We shook hands when we parted. He even thanked me.

  * * * *

  Alice Wolforth sat beside my desk and played with the snap of her purse.

  "Take it easy, Mrs. Wolforth,” I said. “I'm not going to drag this out."

  "I knew it."

  "No,” I said. “Your husband is a good, honorable man."

  She stared at me. “Really?"

  I smiled. “Really."

  "You mean—"

  I nodded.

  Tears brimmed in her eyes. “I'm so relieved. I can't thank you enough, Mr. Quinn."

  I shrugged. “I'm glad it worked out this way."

  * * * *

  It's been over a year now, and I'm still kee
ping an eye on Thomas Wolforth, giving him more than his five grand's worth. He's never gone back to the Charles Hotel—or any other hotel, for that matter. I didn't think he would. We have a deal, and he's an honorable man.

  And I think he's happy about it. I know Mrs. Wolforth is. I am, too, for that matter. It worked out well. I like it when I can make people happy.

  Copyright (c) 1993 by William G. Tapply; originally published in AHMM, April 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  * * * *

  Loved the story? Share your thoughts in The Readers Forum at www.TheMysteryPlace.com.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  VOLUME FIFTY-ONE 2006

  Alderman, Mitch: Sudden Stop ... Nov 23

  Allyn, Doug: Surviving Spouse ... Oct 108

  Auswaks, Alex: Russell Davenport and the Break-In Artists ... Oct 84

  Betancourt, John Gregory: A Christmas Pit ... Jan/Feb 148; Pit on the Road to Hell ... July/Aug 38

  Biggle, Jr., Lloyd: The Case of the Unrepentant Ghost ... Sep 28

  Bloch, Robert: Luck Is No Lady ... Mar 126

  Boland, John C.: The Passenger ... Dec 120; Past Life ... Apr 30; Tequila ... July/Aug 132

  Brown, Ernest B. & Alice A.: More Than One Kind of Mean ... Dec 82

  Budewitz, Leslie: The End of the Line ... Dec 97

  Burns, Rex: In a Civilized Manner ... Nov 40; Shadow People ... Jun 7

  Carroll, Jr., William J.: Bad Weather ... Jan/Feb 75

  Craig, Jonathan: Six Skinny Coffins ... May 130

  Crenshaw, Bill: Poor Dumb Mouths ... Sep 124

  De Noux, O'Neill: 21 Steps ... Jan/Feb 116; The Heart Has Reasons ... Sep 106

  Deverell, Diana: Mongol Mash ... Mar 4

  Dirckx, John H.: The Dog in the Daytime ... July/Aug 101; Green Fish Blues ... Jan/Feb 34; No Videotaping During the Murder ... Dec 45

  Dobbyn, John F.: The Sweet Science ... Dec 6

  Druett, Joan Fallen ... Jan/Feb 16

  DuBois, Brendan: The Devil's Girlfriend ... Jan/Feb 213; Redemption Cove ... July/Aug 142

  Estleman, Loren D.: Square One ... Nov 62