AHMM, November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  After an eternity, Remy returned down the stairs with two small leather sacks in his hand.

  "Ready?” he asked.

  I nodded vigorously.

  He blew out the candle, unlocked the door, listened for any untoward sounds, then locked the door again after we had passed through.

  Back in the alley where we had hidden ourselves before, I found my trash pile and started to burrow in. The Chevalier made as if to join me in my hiding place, but I pushed him away.

  "I didn't want to say anything before,” I whispered, “but you have the aroma of spoiled apples about you. Go sleep someplace else."

  By the time I had completely covered myself up, he was gone. Sleep came quickly and my dreams were pleasant until some good housewife threw slops on top of my hiding place. When her footsteps had receded out of the alley, I crawled out of the pile and into the morning sunlight. With a long stick, I prodded the garbage where Remy had hidden the night before. Empty. I left the alleyway and started for home, munching on my leftover loaf of bread. Before I'd reached the gates of Paris, Remy had fallen in step right behind me. I wrinkled my nose and knew without even turning to look because I'd recognized the faint odor of rotten apples wafting through the air. It was probably good that Remy could not see the broad grin on my face.

  As we approached our Roman ruins on the Buttes-Chaumont, I found myself whistling a tune. My ordeal was over. We had the jewels and therefore I was free of Lemat's sharp blade.

  Unfortunately, there at the entrance to the ruined villa, Lemat sat on a large rock, cleaning his dirty fingernails with the point of his pitted dagger. I lagged behind on Remy's off side in order to stay out of sight and had to hurry forward as we passed through the entrance. Lemat appeared not to notice us until we were slightly beyond him. Then he stood up behind us.

  "It is fortunate you have returned. King Jules requires your immediate presence."

  "We have the jewels now,” I stammered.

  "Good for you,” replied Lemat. Three more of the king's enforcers stepped out of hiding and surrounded us. “But this concerns another matter."

  In less time than it normally took me to devour a purloined slab of cheese, we were herded to the end of the ruined villa where Jules kept his throne. We found Jules pacing back and forth in front of a long table. Sitting in a chair on the other side of the table was a small swarthy man with a thick black mustache bristling below his nose and a gold hoop swinging from one earlobe. The man seemed at once both angry and frightened. His black eyes glittered.

  "I've brought them,” Lemat said.

  Jules quit pacing and stared at us. He sniffed the air.

  To forestall any questions, Remy held out his hand with one small leather bag dangling beneath.

  "These are the jewels you requested."

  Jules barely glanced inside the bag before stashing it in his shirt.

  "I believe this concludes our bargain,” said Remy.

  "I've added another condition,” replied King Jules.

  "Need I remind you of the original agreement,” retorted the Chevalier.

  Jules nodded to his hard-faced assassins. They drew their swords and stood two paces back from us. Three more of the king's killers stepped up to join the circle.

  And me with only a remaining crust of bread with which to defend myself. My stomach fluttered.

  "We have a new problem,” continued Jules, as if the Chevalier had already agreed to help. Jules held out his new crown. “My Bohemian tinker has just delivered this head ornament into my hands.” He then gestured toward the short swarthy man seated on the other side of the table. “I believe it to be too light to contain all the gold I provided for its manufacture.” Now Jules pointed his index finger directly at the swarthy man. “I think he stole some of my gold."

  I nudged Remy to do something.

  "You still have the second bar of equal weight?” inquired Remy.

  "I do."

  "Then use a balance scale to see if all your gold ended up in your crown."

  Jules's face darkened.

  "There's not a balance scale to be had in our community,” he replied.

  "Send one of your men down to the city."

  "That would take hours,” said Jules, “and I have no patience. I need to know now whether or not to cut this Bohemian's throat."

  "Do as you wish,” said Remy with a flourish, “it has nothing to do with me."

  Jules had his predator grin again.

  "Ah, but it does. You are the one man of great learning among us,” he almost purred, “so solve this problem to my satisfaction and you are finally free to go."

  Remy rubbed his chin and gazed at the Bohemian tinker. The silence grew until I wanted to pull his sleeve, or scream, or something.

  "I need a chair,” he said at last.

  Jules waved a hand at Lemat.

  Lemat glanced around. Only two chairs were available nearby, the king's throne and the chair where the Bohemian sat. Lemat yanked the Bohemian upright, then carried the chair around the table.

  Remy sat.

  No one spoke.

  After a few minutes of us staring at him, Remy requested that a small kettle just large enough to accommodate the crown be brought forward, along with a bucket of water. When the kettle appeared, the Chevalier filled it to barely overflowing with water. The surface of the water gradually settled and was still.

  "Your crown,” he commanded.

  Jules reluctantly produced his new head ornament.

  Remy tied a light cord through the crown and slowly eased it into the kettle of water. When he extracted the crown, the water level had subsided some distance. He turned to Lemat.

  "I need your dagger."

  Lemat looked at the king.

  King Jules nodded.

  Lemat handed over his gray, pitted blade.

  Remy reached inside the kettle and made a long deep mark right at the upper edge of the waterline. Several in the crowd leaned over to see what he was doing. Then Remy filled the kettle up with water to the brim again.

  "Now give me your second bar of gold."

  Jules handed over the bar.

  Remy tied the same cord around the bar and slowly lowered it into the kettle. When the water settled again, he withdrew the bar of gold with some awkwardness to the raising. The bar twisted on the cord. Quickly, Remy slipped his right hand under the gold bar to keep it from falling out of the loop.

  I looked inside the kettle. Now the water had receded even more than before.

  Remy used Lemat's dagger to make a second mark at the new waterline, which was well below the first mark.

  Jules shoved gawkers out of the way so he could peer into the kettle himself.

  "The difference between the two watermarks,” said Remy, “is how much gold has been stolen from you."

  "I've been cheated,” exclaimed Jules. Then he looked over at the space where the swarthy man had been standing earlier, but the Bohemian had somehow disappeared into the multitude. “Find the tinker,” roared King Jules.

  The crowd dissipated in several directions.

  I quickly caught up with Remy, who was returning to our humble lodgings.

  Unable to contain my curiosity any further, I inquired, “How did you know to do that?"

  The Chevalier maintained his pace without looking back at the king's table and the gold.

  "Once a man learns history, he has acquired the knowledge to solve many problems. To ensure I had this knowledge, my father engaged the services of a tutor while I was still at an early age."

  For myself, the only learning I had received was at Mother Margaux's school for young pickpockets. History was a foreign subject to me, but if it increased my chances at survival, then maybe this history thing would be good to learn.

  "Tell me what you learned,” I implored.

  Remy glanced at me, but kept up the rapid pace.

  "An ancient Greek named Archimedes, when faced with a similar problem as we had today, discovered that
the mass of an object displaces an equal volume of water. In other words, two equal amounts of gold, regardless of their shape, should have displaced the same amount of water."

  "But the watermarks were different,” I said, “and that's how you knew the tinker was a thief."

  "True,” replied Remy, “plus I've had other dealings with that particular Bohemian. He's cheated me on some of the merchandise I sold him in the past."

  "Crooks are everywhere,” I muttered. “How were we to know about the tinker?"

  "In Spain, they are called gitanos,” said Remy, “in France we call them Bohemians, yet regardless of the name, they are gypsies, silver-tongued thieves. I knew this man."

  As we approached our shared dwelling, the Chevalier stopped and looked over his shoulder. I turned and glanced too. No one was paying any attention to us. Then Remy used his left hand to squeeze his right sleeve near the wrist. Water dropped to the ground like a small cloudburst.

  At the time, I didn't think much of it, but in the weeks and months to come, my mind dwelled often on all that extra water squeezed out of the Chevalier's sleeve. Remy had ensured that the second watermark would fall well below the first and therefore the Bohemian would definitely take blame for cheating Jules on a vast amount of gold in the crown. In light of those events, I wasn't sure how much I could trust the Chevalier, especially since we both competed for the favors of only one Josette.

  True, Remy had given the Bohemian tinker a standing start with which to melt into the multitude and thus make his escape, yet I retained some doubts about my own welfare under our current circumstances. This Chevalier would bear close watching in the future. I would have to be on constant guard, lest I, too, fall victim to his scheming mind.

  Copyright (c) 2007 R.T. Lawton

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  BOOKED & PRINTED by ROBERT C. HAHN

  Assigned to such tasks as social worker or juvenile case handler, women's roles in law enforcement were long circumscribed by their gender. But now that women are likely to fill any job in law enforcement, a new generation of procedurals has emerged that feature female protagonists who combine the day-to-day concerns of working women with the gritty details of criminal investigations. This month we consider three outstanding examples, novels in which the main character's gender is the least remarkable aspect of her performance. With these women, readers are treated to complex characters who deal competently and bravely with whatever situations they encounter.

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  Estelle Reyes-Guzman was first introduced to readers as a member of Undersheriff Bill Gastner's department in Steven F. Havill's excellent, if underappreciated, Posadas County series, which began with Heartshot in 1991. With the publication of Scavengers (2002), Reyes-Guzman moved from supporting player to star, replacing the retired Gastner. Through fourteen books, the series has served to illuminate the multicultural village and county of Posadas, New Mexico, which sprawls near the Mexican border. Though Reyes-Guzman is now clearly the central character, the series is not star driven; its ensemble cast of finely drawn characters allows for more focus on the humanity of the area's inhabitants rather than on its crimes—although the crimes Gastner and Reyes-Guzman investigate do cover the gamut from the brutal to the quixotic.

  In FINAL PAYMENT (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95), the latest installment, the local flavor, always so prominent, gets a regional boost from the inaugural Posadas 100, a hundred-mile bicycle race that traverses some very rugged country and poses considerable logistical problems for the organizers and for the sheriff's department. Meanwhile, one local reports that his private plane has been flown without his permission. When a remote and seldom-used airstrip is the scene of a triple homicide, Estelle starts to look for connections among the three events.

  The bicycle race gives Havill license to explore some of the most rugged territory Estelle's forces must cover. The fatalities test not only the ingenuity of the local sheriffs and police departments, but also the cross-border cooperation with Mexican authorities. Nobody mines this colorful territory better than Havill, whose recurrent characters have garnered depth and increasing resonance from book to book.

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  EDGE OF MIDNIGHT (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95) is the seventh entry in Charlene Weir's series featuring Police Chief Susan Wren of Hampstead, Kansas. The series began with 1992's The Winter Widow, which won the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic award for Best First Traditional Mystery, and has since grown slowly but steadily.

  In Edge of Midnight, Susan Wren and her staff are faced with two often hidden crimes—spousal abuse and school bullying—and three women each trying to escape in some way—one from a stalker; one from an abusive husband who happens to be a police officer; and one, a sensitive teenager, from a school bully's taunts and rumors.

  When Cary Black finally gets up the courage to leave her husband, she is goaded by the knowledge that she is going blind and will lose the one pleasure remaining in her life—reading. A friend arranges for her to stay with Kelby Oliver, who has moved to rural Hampstead to hide from a stalker. But when Cary arrives, she finds Kelby's house deserted. Cary, in a strange town, with no friends or money, assumes Kelby's identity.

  What happened to Kelby and what will happen to Cary provide the crux of the grim mystery, while Susan Wren's newest police officer, Ida Rather, provides some laughs as the eager recruit's enthusiasm may end up sidelining one or more of her colleagues.

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  Taffy Cannon has written a number of novels under her own name, such as the Nan Robinson mysteries, and the cozy Booked for Travel mystery series under the name of Emily Toll. Guns and Roses, which introduced Roxanne Prescott, earned her nominations for both the Agatha and Macavity awards.

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  Her fourteenth book, BLOOD MATTERS (Perseverance Press, $14.95) is the second to feature the rookie detective Roxanne Prescott, a fourth-generation law enforcement officer from Texas, who has joined the San Diego Sheriff's Department. She is now the newest member of the homicide squad headed by Lieutenant Sara Blair.

  Roxanne and her partner, the more experienced Jed Wilkinson, investigate the death of Sam Brennan, the wealthy, eccentric, even visionary CEO of Adoption Central, after he is discovered bludgeoned in his home with a statuette of Michael Jackson. Brennan's colorful past—his adoption, his rise to wealth and prominence, his failed marriages—not to mention his tell-all book about adoption agencies—leads to a plethora of suspects, but to catch the killer, the ever-insightful Roxanne sets a clever trap.

  Roxanne may be the focus, but a team of experts ably abets her, and she appreciates her partner's willingness to share both his expertise and investigative duties. Cannon handles the details of the adoption center with aplomb, and her writing has the verve to capture the Southern California setting, while the supporting characters are drawn with enough depth to keep the reader guessing until the very end.

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  ALL POINTS BULLETIN: This May, Molly MacRae, whose series featuring sisters Bitsy and Margaret has graced the pages of AHMM, debuted her first novel wilder rumors: a lewis wilder mystery (Five Star, $25.95), the tale of a museum curator accused of murder while a stylish burglar runs rampant in the rural South. Having spent twenty years in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and having worked as the curator of a history museum herself, MacRae writes with familiarity, wit, and charm.

  Copyright (c) 2007 Robert C. Hahn

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  ACCOUNT CLOSED by William Link

  Lieutenant Meltzer had never lost contact with Martin Herwitt over the years. Meltzer had been the chief homicide investigator on the case in which Herwitt's daughter had been brutally murdered by her husband. The admitted culprit, Neal Bevans, had pled insanity and had been incarcerated in a state mental institution until a panel of psychologists had pronounced him recovered from paranoid schizophrenia and believed he was no
longer a threat to society.

  Bevans had found Christ during his extended stay under state, tax-supported auspices, which Meltzer found somewhat suspicious since Bevans's Savior seemed to have established a second residence in prison, and an amazing number of felons sought to impress their parole boards with their newfound faith.

  Bevans's release was seven years old now. He had remarried, fathered two children, and attended Mass at a church in Santa Monica where one also found the pre-gubernatorial Arnold Schwarzenegger and his family most Sundays. He now owned and was chef at a small, fairly popular, eclectic-food restaurant, Neal's, in the neighborhood where he had grown up.

  The Bevans file had occupied only a dusty place in the back of Meltzer's mind when he received a call out of the blue from Herwitt, who suggested they get together for a drink.

  They met at a tiny tavern (Herwitt's suggestion) only a few blocks from Bevans's restaurant, which immediately set off an alarm bell. Bevans was an obsession with the father, who had once told Meltzer that if his daughter's killer was ever freed he would shoot him down in the street. A Jewish gunfighter. Please.

  Herwitt looked haunted. His once-fleshy, seventy-year-old face was emaciated, slowly crumbling from within, like an emotionally termite-tortured structure. “They've given me six months to live,” he told Meltzer after he had taken a swallow of his double whiskey.

  "I'm sorry to hear that, Martin.” He was. “The smoking?"

  Herwitt nodded, flinging a pack of cigarettes on the table. “I never smoked—until after Karen died.” He took a drink. “How's your daughter? Sara Beth, was it?"

  "Good. She's good. This year she says she wants to be an anthropologist. I said okay, but no digs in the Middle East."

  Herwitt made a valiant attempt at a smile. “You're blessed, Meltzer,” he said. “I hope you realize that."

  "I do, Martin, I do.” He had known exactly how Herwitt and his wife had felt after the loss of their own child. This was the kind of loss that destroyed marriages and sanities. “The doctors—your doctors—don't hold out any hope at all?"