EQMM, February 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "If he's Irish and he produces it, it must be genuinely Irish, surely?"

  "That's a good point. They're Seamus Byrnes, though, not Padraic O'Shaughnessys."

  "But if you can have ... a name de ... a whatsit de...” I nearly hit myself in frustration.

  "A nom de plume, dear one. A name under which one writes. Well, I suppose you could have a nom de pot, as it were!” He hugged me, laughing. But then his face became serious. “However genuinely Irish they might be, I don't see a huge market swing in favour of his horrid artefacts. So where does his money come from? For money there undoubtedly is."

  "He's a mate of yours: Why don't you call on him?"

  "Why indeed? But I don't like to cross-question a colleague, Lina: None of us likes nosiness."

  "But everyone likes a good gossip. Come on: Get on the phone to Caleb. He should be back from his AA meeting by now."

  * * * *

  Griff poked at his unsalted, unsweetened muesli, the jug of skimmed milk in his reluctant hand. “There's a woman passing off fake Susie Cooper to gullible Americans, but the U.S. is having its own back, it seems."

  I dug into my muesli, which I forced down purely to keep him company. “In the form of—?"

  "A young man who's up to something, but Caleb's not sure what. A brilliant chemist, he says."

  "You mean, like Boots?” I asked.

  "No. Your white-lab-coat-and-test-tubes end of the market. He went to work in the pharmaceutical industry, but he tried peddling some clever new pills to a rival company and got blacklisted. So he had to find other ways of making an honest dollar. Or dishonest. Over in the U.S., he was faking Washington memorabilia, but it seems he wouldn't have a problem passing off chopped-down cherry trees."

  I frowned, then remembered. “So he's okay with lying?"

  "Quite. Now, Caleb thinks he's over here. But no one knows what he's up to."

  "We know a charming American, don't we?” I said, clutching Griff's hand just in case he'd been a teeny bit smitten despite himself. “With the same name,” I added bitterly, “as a former Archbishop of Canterbury!"

  "We also know a newly rich potter,” Griff said, squeezing my hand, in case I had been too.

  "All we need to know is if this potter of ours has bought a new kiln recently, one capable of really high temperatures,” I said. “If he has, we may have evidence to lay before the police. Even if we're not sure what of, yet."

  "Of what, my love. Of what."

  * * * *

  This time Simon brought a truly lovely piece, almost as fine in shape as our treasure, soon to be displayed in a big Black Country exhibition in a museum which was also interested in buying it for its permanent collection. We wouldn't make the mint we'd hoped for, but Griff was always keen on doing what he termed a little pro bono work. So I was really very keen to handle the new vase, which was dumpier than ours. The colour was excellent, a very deep cream base colour just peeping through the sweeps of purple and crimson, which the black and turquoise markings dappled irregularly.

  Simon was taken aback—not surprising, I suppose, considering I'd never let him get his mitts on our vase. While he thought about it, I asked, casually, “And do you have any provenance for it?"

  He gaped. Words like that didn't easily come to my mouth, but this was one Griff had assured me was vital to our profession. He'd told Simon that having background information added pounds if it was genuine; he hadn't added it prevented people like us unknowingly handling stolen property.

  "Another family item. Grandson of one of the potters—Samuel Butler. I'm sure you've heard of him."

  I had. But not as a potter. There were Boswells in the Ruskin Pottery, but no Butlers. In any case, Samuel would have been a bit busy, wouldn't he, trying to work in Smethwick and write books set in Erewhon, which even I could work out was nowhere? Maybe he was talking to that dratted archbishop at the same time! How dared Simon think he could con me so easily!

  My hands were still outstretched. Clearly reluctant, he handed the vase over. It was not only stamped with the factory die, but even signed: W. Howson Taylor. A gem. Possibly.

  * * * *

  Griff and I had a nice tame policeman called Dan Freeman. He invited himself round for supper from time to time and there was no reason for him not to sing for it. He'd worked undercover on a case involving stolen books—not paperbacks from Ottakar's, something altogether grander and part of our national heritage—and we'd learned to like and respect each other.

  "How's the fraud trade, Dan?” Griff asked expansively over something wonderful he'd conjured from guinea fowl.

  "Why?” Dan's fork hung between plate and lips.

  Together we told our tale.

  "You see, it's possible to reglaze pottery,” I explained. “And once I was sure I recognised a piece of my handiwork in a different colour from the one it had been when I'd stuck it together, I could look for other pieces. And found far too many on the market."

  Griff nodded. “Usually good pieces are like hen's teeth, Dan: The jungle drums beat feverishly when a sale comes up."

  "But why involve you?"

  "To add an air of respectability to an otherwise fallacious narrative.” Griff had the air of someone quoting something, but I'd no idea what. I don't think Dan placed it either, but he smiled warmly.

  Though possibly at me.

  "In other words, I think he came in the first instance as a genuine customer. Perhaps he'll be kind enough to tell you that. And I think he was genuinely attracted to a very lovely thing. But then he saw ways of changing already precious items and making them apparently far more valuable—though in fact, he's rendered the poor things worthless.” And Griff loathed like poison anyone who ruined a work of art.

  "He tried selling his newly glazed items, which of course carried the maker's mark and in one case his signature. They did well. But perhaps he got more ambitious and knew that with larger and more expensive pieces people would look even more closely. He asked us to sell on some genuine vases and pots: We're sure they were kosher. I think he was lulling us into a state of false security. Then came the first five-thousand-pound vase. If we sold it, no one would imagine it could be a fake."

  "He was very ... pl ... p..."

  "Plausible,” Dan finished for me kindly. “I know it's a case of ‘buyer beware'—"

  "Caveat emptor," I said firmly.

  "But actually going out of your way to fake things and involve innocent people—” he looked at Griff quizzically—"is definitely illegal. So we can nail him. And bung him back to the U.S.” He toasted us both in some of Griff's finest brandy. “What a good job he picked on you: Tripp and Townend would never trade under false colours."

  Copyright (c) 2007 by Judith Cutler

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: A MATTER OF JUSTICE by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg

  * * * *

  Art by Jason Eckhardt

  * * * *

  A writer whose first published work was in the science fiction/fantasy field, Barry Malzberg became one of that genre's most notable authors, winning a Locus Award and a Hugo nomination, editing Amazing Stories, and creating a style so distinctive that other writers were influenced by and even parodied it. Here he rejoins one of his former collaborators, Bill Pronzini, author of the Nameless series and a frequent EQMM contributor.

  * * * *

  Computer-typed letter dated March 11, 2008, and signed by James B. Darnell:

  TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

  I killed a man tonight.

  It was a willful and premeditated act. I waited outside his house in the Fairview section of the city, hidden behind a hedge, and when he came home late, as was his custom, I stepped out and pressed the barrel of my .22 caliber revolver against his temple. I told him why he was about to die and then I shot him. No one saw me. The police have no reason to suspect me. Perhaps they think it was a domestic crime, or a botched robbery attempt, or a random act of violence—in any case, a cold-bloo
ded murder. But it was no such thing.

  It was a matter of justice.

  Please don't misunderstand me. I did not commit this act rashly, nor do I make these statements lightly. I am not a murderer, even though I have taken a human life. On the contrary, I am a man with a highly developed moral sense, a man who has lived righteously for all of my thirty-seven years. Until last night I had never knowingly broken the law, nor raised a hand against another person. I believe in the basic sanctity of life. Why, then, did I kill this man?

  I did it because he deserved to die.

  I did it because if I hadn't, he would have gone unpunished for an unconscionable—a capital—offense.

  I did it because he killed my wife.

  A willful and premeditated act, yes, but in the same sense that a state-sanctioned execution is a willful and premeditated act. I was his executioner, no more than that. For I also believe in the biblical precept of an eye for an eye. A capital offense must be paid for by capital punishment.

  His name was Marvin Peterson. An innocuous name for a seemingly innocuous individual. He was a pharmacist, an honorable profession for a dishonorable man, employed by one of the large chain drugstores. I knew him slightly from the not infrequent visits Caroline and I made to Consolidated Drugs, where he was employed—just well enough so that the three of us were on a first-name basis. Caroline suffered from heart trouble and hypertension and I have a thyroid condition, both of which required prescribed medication renewable on a monthly basis. We also did other shopping at the drugstore. On the average, one or both of us had occasion to go there perhaps once a week.

  This frequency increased as Caroline's heart condition gradually worsened. She had always been somewhat frail and prone to physical ailments, which she bore without undue complaint—she was a good wife, if a little too placid, dramatic, and intellectually weak. She'd had a serious arrhythmia for many years and it had led to congestive heart failure, which, her doctor told her, needed to be carefully controlled with medication. In conjunction with other meds, he prescribed enalapril for treatment of her high blood pressure, in 5mg tablets to be taken twice daily—though she preferred to take them both at once with her morning coffee, as she did with most of her medications. Naturally she had the prescription filled at Consolidated Drugs. By Marvin Peterson. He attended to it with evident care, as he had all of our prior prescriptions, until the fourth refill, one week ago.

  On that occasion he was not careful, he was criminally, unpardonably negligent. Instead of enalapril, he somehow managed to substitute Armour Thyroid, the drug I take in a 60mg daily dosage to replace my thyroid hormone. Enalapril and Armour Thyroid are both round and similar in size, though of very subtly different shades of white. Caroline hadn't noticed the difference; she paid too little attention to any of her medications when she took them. She trusted Peterson to have provided her with the proper ones.

  A large dosage of Armour Thyroid can be lethal to a person with a serious arrhythmia and congestive heart failure, particularly when taken with a stimulant such as coffee. The combination jolted Caroline's heart, increasing its beat to the point where she suffered cardiac arrest and died almost immediately. The date of her death was six days shy of her forty-fifth birthday.

  Marvin Peterson killed her. He killed her as surely as if he had done what I did to him, pressed the barrel of a handgun against her temple and pulled the trigger. He killed her with his gross criminal negligence, and a cheerful smile, as he slid the fatal prescription across the counter and said to her, in my hearing, “Here you are, Mrs. Darnell. A pleasure to serve you, as always."

  There can be no doubt that he was guilty. He always filled our prescriptions “as a personal service,” and he was the only pharmacist working at Consolidated Drugs that day. No one had access to the prescription in our home; no one but Caroline touched the vial after it passed from Peterson's hands to hers.

  Caroline's doctor did not discover the Armour Thyroid substitute. There was no compelling reason for him to check her medication, nor did I permit an autopsy; he assumed the cause of death was a sudden heart attack. I was the one who discovered the truth, purely by accident, as I was about to dispose of the vial. It slipped from my hand, the loose top came off, the tablets spilled on the floor, and when I retrieved them I realized that they were Armour Thyroid, not enalapril as marked on the label. She could not have gotten the vials mixed up. The only person who could have been responsible was Marvin Peterson.

  I could have informed the police, but to what end? In the eyes of the law, Peterson had made a monstrous but not a felonious mistake. It might have cost him his pharmacist's license, but nothing more. Even if criminal charges could have been brought against him, the worst punishment he would have faced was a short prison term; there is no capital punishment in this state. A wrongful death suit? I do not care about money, or civil satisfaction—I cared only about Caroline, I cared only about justice.

  Once Peterson had been judged guilty by the evidence, my only recourse was to mete out his punishment myself.

  I do not expect the police to question me, unless they decide to question every one of Peterson's customers. I am a model citizen, a respected tax accountant, and there is nothing to connect the two of us except for Caroline's and my regular patronage of Consolidated Drugs. The vial of mislabeled Armour Thyroid tablets no longer exists; I destroyed it completely after deciding that Peterson must be executed.

  I do not believe that I should be punished in any way for what I've done. I have not, despite the letter of the law, committed a crime. If I believed otherwise, I would take appropriate steps; as I've stated, I live by a strict moral and ethical code. But my conscience is clear. Should an executioner be made to suffer for pulling a switch or making a lethal injection? No, of course not.

  This document, therefore, is not intended as a confession but an explanatory statement of fact. I will place it in my safe-deposit box, among my other papers, to be read by interested parties long after my own death. I abhor loose ends, unexplained happenings. The world should know, even if it no longer cares by the time the truth be known, of Peterson's offense and the price he paid for it.

  * * * *

  Handwritten letter dated March 2, 2008, five days before Caroline Darnell's death, and signed by her:

  * * * *

  Dear James,

  This is a very difficult letter to write. I've tried very hard not to write it, but there is an overwhelming need in me to confess. You have the right to know the truth.

  For the past six months I have been having an affair. You don't know the man and his name isn't important. At first, I loved him madly. He was charming, attentive, passionate—all the things I've always ached for you to be. But then I learned the truth about him. He was only using me for his own amusement and satisfaction. He doesn't really care anything about me. Or about anyone, including his wife. Your ways may sometimes be cold and rigid, James, but I know that you do care about me and always have.

  I've been such a fool. I feel terribly guilty, and with the guilt has come a deeper depression than ever before. I've tried to fight it with increased amounts of antidepressants, but the drugs no longer work. The guilt and the depression have become unbearable.

  I must put an end to my misery. Soon.

  I don't know yet how I'll do it. Pills, probably, perhaps something to counteract my heart medicines.

  My first thought, once I made my decision, was not to reveal the truth to you or to anyone else. It would be a mercy to you, I know, if I kept quiet and let you believe my death was either accidental or of natural causes. But the desire to confess is too strong and I'm too weak and cowardly to resist. I won't add to your burden by putting this letter where you'll find it immediately after I'm gone. Instead I'll place it among the papers in my desk. You're such a meticulous man, James—I'm sure you'll find it eventually.

  I'm so sorry. Please forgive me.

  * * * *

  Barely legible handwritten note, undated,
signed by James B. Darnell:

  Marvin Peterson was innocent! I murdered ... not executed, murdered ... an innocent man!

  How can I live with the terrible mistake I've made? I can't. My conscience, my moral code ... no. I am guilty and the guilty must be punished. Prison is not an option, I couldn't stand to be locked up. The punishment must fit the crime. There is no other choice.

  The executioner must now execute himself.

  * * * *

  Handwritten letter, dated March 5, 2008, two days before Caroline Darnell's death, and signed by her:

  * * * *

  Darling—

  I don't know why I should still call you “darling” after the way you've treated me. Habit, I suppose. A small, a very small part of me still cares for you. But you've destroyed all the deep love I felt with your cruel and vicious words. You may be an expert lover, and you certainly know how to pretend to care for a woman, but underneath you're selfish and cold. James is a saint compared to you.

  I've been so depressed since you told me you didn't want me in your life anymore that I actually planned to do away with myself. I even wrote a letter to James telling him I was going to. But I've changed my mind. I can't let you drive me to self-destruction, or get away with what you've done to me. I'm going to make you suffer as I've suffered these past few days. You've used me, now you'll pay for it.

  In the next day or two or three, or maybe a week from now, I'll call your wife and tell her about us. Every sordid detail. And all the terrible things you said about her and about me. I'll call your friends and business associates and tell them too.

  Don't think this is an idle threat because it isn't. And don't try to make amends, it's too late for that. You can't talk me out of it. All you can do is wait for it to happen and then suffer the consequences.

  * * * *

  From the report of Police Inspector Evan Norris, Homicide Division:

  * * * *

  The four documents in this file, together with the other evidence we've gathered, clearly outline the odd series of circumstances linking the deaths of Caroline Darnell, Marvin Peterson, and James B. Darnell.