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Cover © Maugli/Shutterstock
CONTENTS
Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: A KILLER YEAR by Linda Landrigan
Department: THE LINEUP
Fiction: A SORCERER'S FATE by Susan Oleksiw
Fiction: THE TROLLFARM KILLING by Mike Culpepper
Department: THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by by Willie Rose
Fiction: OUT OF HER DEPTH by John C. Boland
Fiction: O'NELLIGAN AND THE PERFECT MAN by Michael Nethercott
Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn
Fiction: BOUDIN NOIR by R. T. Lawton
Fiction: THE CARETAKER by Terence Faherty
Fiction: NOWHERE TO GO by Iain Rowan
Mystery Classic: THE MAN WHO WAS KICKED TO DEATH by Pablo Palacio
Department: INDEX: VOLUME FIFTY-FOUR 2009
Department: COMING IN JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010
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Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: A KILLER YEAR by Linda Landrigan
Not every misdeed occurs in the mean streets of big cities. Mexico, India, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming are just a few of the places where this month's issue finds charming thieves, wily con artists, and murderous moneymen. Meanwhile, the Chevalier Remy descends into the depths of the seventeenth century Parisian underworld in R. T. Lawton's “Boudin Noir.” A slave called Colm in ancient Iceland proves to be calm and quick thinking in the midst of murderous passions in Mike Culpepper's “The Trollfarm Killing.” And the Yeats-loving Mr. O'Nelligan helps P.I. Lee Plunkett suss out an art thief in Scarsdale, New York, in “O'Nelligan and the Perfect Man” by Michael Nethercott.
This month's mystery classic is the first English publication of a tale by Ecuadorian writer Pablo Palacio; “The Man Who Was Kicked to Death” was chosen and translated by Kenneth Wishnia who, as K.j.a. Wishnia, is the author of a series of novels featuring the quick-tongued Ecuadorian native Filomena Buscarsela.
So, lock the doors and settle in for a little felonious armchair travel.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: THE LINEUP
John C. Boland was a 2009 finalist for best short story at the International Thriller Awards.
Mike Culpepper's last ancient Iceland story, “The Necklace of Glass,” was published in November 2009.
Terence Faherty's Owen Keane series, which follows a failed seminarian turned metaphysical detective, is being reissued in Italian by Delos Books.
Booked & Printed columnist Robert C. Hahn reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and New York Post, among other publications.
R. T. Lawton is a retired federal agent. His pseudonymous nonfiction book will be published by F&W publishing next summer.
Michael Nethercott won the Black Orchid Novella Award for “O'Nelligan's Glory” (July/August 2009). He lives in Vermont.
Susan Oleksiw's first novel featuring Anita Ray will be published by Thorndike/Five Star Mystery in May.
Iain Rowan is at work on his second novel. He lives in northeast England.
Kenneth Wishnia's novel, The Fifth Servant, will be published by William Morrow in February 2010. He has translated the work of several Spanish and Yiddish authors.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Fiction: A SORCERER'S FATE by Susan Oleksiw
Anita Ray turned toward the road on the other side of the compound wall as the sharp insistent sound of the bicycle bell grew louder, its ringing alternating with the high-pitched, sharp-toned call of “Paper! Paper!” The way the syllables were broken up made it almost impossible for all but the most practiced ear to recognize the word, but it didn't matter. Out here in the hills of South India, everyone knew what the man wanted—old newspapers, to be purchased for a few paise and sold for a few more to local shops for wrapping paper.
Right now Anita found it hard to appreciate the details of village life. She didn't even want to lift her camera for the obligatory shot of bougainvillea tumbling over a compound wall, or goats cavorting down the street. Not even for a woman carrying a large plastic bucket on her head, her colorful sari billowing in the breeze. She was too worried about her cousin Sheela. Two days ago her Auntie Meena had staggered into the office of Hotel Delite, which she owned and where Anita lived and ostensibly helped out, with the news that cousin Sheela had fallen into a deep depression that was ruining her marriage, and no one could shake her out of it. Her mother was desperate, and would Anita come for a visit and talk to Sheela?
"I thought she and Bharat were the perfect couple.” Anita's cousins were being married off with disturbing regularity, but at least the older generation tended to pick good spouses.
"I am hearing it is not so. But you will help her, yes?"
"Really, Auntie. I had no idea you thought so much of my counseling skills,” Anita said.
"I don't. I am thinking you are so outrageous in your thinking that merely listening to you will bring poor Sheela back to real life and her own sweet self, as she was before she married."
Anita didn't think this was a realistic plan, but then Auntie Meena was never realistic. Reluctantly Anita agreed.
Married less than a year, Sheela and her husband, Bharat, had set up in a modest home barely half a mile from her parents’ house, with three servants. But all had not gone smoothly—Sheela's first child was stillborn at only five months. That was almost two months ago, and Sheela's mother had taken to hovering and fretting. Sheela had taken to sleeping.
Bharat, for his part, seemed to be content to go to work, chat with visitors in the evening, and read his newspaper. He stared at the new television set as though he wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about it, and grew animated when he could turn it off. He and Sheela were not much younger than Anita, but already life wasn't working out for them. Anita arrived expecting a somewhat long and directionless conversation with Sheela, a few deep sighs of disappointment, and then a shopping spree. As a single woman, Sheela hadn't been known for her depth. But this scenario was proving to be difficult to instigate—Anita couldn't get her cousin alone. Frustrated, Anita tried to keep the focus on doing her duty, according to Auntie Meena.
"I thought we'd have a quiet cup of tea,” Anita said after corralling her cousin in the hallway.
"Yes. My good friend is coming also,” Sheela said, leading her into the front parlor. The heavy Victorian furniture, with its ornate carving and gold cushions, had been a gift from her parents. After the stillbirth, Sheela's mother, Remy, arrived daily with another gift, but nothing seemed to help. “Do you remember meeting Parvati at the wedding?"
Anita thought back to the crush of guests in the marriage hall, a large room filled with folding chairs, one side of the room for men and the other for women, almost all of whom Anita was related to, to some degree. She had spent a good part of the wedding avoiding relatives who wanted to help find a suitable husband for her.
"She's very beautiful,” Sheela said, “probably the most beautiful woman in the room."
"Yes, of course, I remember her.” And Anita did because she was indeed the most beautiful woman in the room—and she seemed to know it.
Whatever Parvati felt about Anita was concealed. The other woman greeted Anita warmly and Sheela more warmly still
, even though they had probably seen each other just a few days earlier. The two chatted amiably as Sheela led the way to a side veranda with a cool breeze and spectacular view of the mountains. The one thing Anita did like about this area, though it was far away from the hustle and bustle of the resorts and city, was the view into the valley and up to the mountains, the sense of expansiveness that must compensate for a life geographically circumscribed.
"You are better,” Parvati said, tapping her friend's knee. “I can see it. Isn't she well?” Parvati said, turning to Anita.
She really is beautiful, Anita thought, wondering what it was about the other woman that triggered a sense of uneasiness. Perhaps it was only her looks, but Parvati seemed to grow even lovelier while Sheela grew duller. But aloud Anita only said, “Very well, I think."
"You see. There is nothing to worry about, nothing.” Parvati reached her delicate hand to the tray and claimed a tea biscuit. She had small white teeth and bright, shiny lips that looked as though she used lip gloss. Anita tried not to stare but felt her makeup was worthy of study, so artful and expensive that it seemed out of place in this little village.
"It is good of you to visit these days,” Sheela said without much enthusiasm.
"Nonsense! What sort of friend would I be if I put only my happiness ahead of your needs? We are friends, are we not?” Parvati sat up straight in her rattan chair, her elegant neck stretching upward like a swan's, long and thin and swaying.
"Parvati is so recently married,” Sheela said to Anita. “Only four months past, isn't it?"
Anita looked at Parvati with renewed interest. She seemed hardly the type for this remote village—her new husband must be attached to one of the plantations.
"He is most understanding,” Parvati said. Sheela nodded without much energy.
"Yes, well, friends are certainly important,” Anita said, and moved the conversation away from the topic of marriage.
* * * *
By the end of the afternoon tea Sheela had retreated to her room for another nap. Anita had never thought of her cousin as drab, but drab she had become. Anita went in search of Remy, Sheela's mother.
"Obvious, isn't it?” Remy said. “She's dwindling to nothing."
"Is there a medical reason for this? Has she seen a doctor?"
"Meena warned me you'd start digging.” Remy gave a sigh and heaved herself out of her chair. She walked over to a small glass-fronted armoire and pulled a key from the collection hanging around her waist. She opened the door and reached down to the lowest shelf, extricating something from the back of a pile of goods. “This is the reason."
Anita took the small, roughly carved wooden object—the figure of a woman with a number of iron nails driven into it. She turned it over in her hands, studying front and back, top and bottom. It was an odd-looking figure, a folk art object Anita had never seen around here. She looked up at Remy for an explanation.
"Parvati's husband, Karunkar, gave it to Sheela's husband a few months back. He said it was an antique he came across and hoped it would turn out to be profitable for them someday.” Remy returned to her seat and curled her legs beneath her. She had long, strong limbs, muscular hands and fingers. Looking at her, Anita had the odd feeling that her daughter, Sheela, was incomplete, as though nature hadn't given her a full complement of parts and energies. Certainly compared to her mother, Sheela was missing a lot of the elements of life.
"This looks like a sorcerer's figure,” Anita said.
Remy shrugged. “If you believe in that sort of thing."
"And Sheela does?"
Remy began to squirm in her chair, resettling herself, the smug annoyed look fading for one of worry and embarrassment. “I didn't think so—she always told me she was part of the new world—but I was wrong."
"And do you believe in this now? After the baby?” The flash of pain across Remy's face gave Anita her answer. She turned the figure over in her hands. If she looked at it from the perspective of a personal relationship, then it was obviously ugly, with its round eyes with vertical slits, a flattened face, a slash for a mouth, and limbs barely distinguished from the torso. “Have there been other things Sheela is connecting to this figure?"
Remy's face collapsed, her facade of the sophisticated Indian woman crumbling in seconds. “It is not to be believed."
"Tell me anyway."
Remy studied Anita for a minute, and Anita knew what was going through the other woman's mind—the embarrassment at having to admit that such images had real power for some, and perhaps even for her, the confusion that such a thing should happen to her family, the helplessness, not knowing what to do.
"When did Bharat get this figure?” Anita asked.
"Perhaps three or four months ago,” Remy said.
Anita struggled with her next question. If it had been anyone else, or at least anyone not a relative, she would have simply blurted out the question, but relatives required a certain delicacy; whatever she did tended to take on a life of its own as it worked its way back to Auntie Meena. Anita could understand why her mother had moved to America with Anita's father at the earliest opportunity. “Have there been other, um, reversals?"
"Reversals? Oh, I see what you mean. Well, yes, I guess you can say this.” Remy stirred in her chair again. “Um, well, Bharat didn't get the promotion he was expecting, and a modest investment went sour. And the rent on the cottage has gone up just as they were saving money for a new house of their own."
And all of it, Anita knew, attributed by Sheela to the presence of this ugly block of wood.
"Why do you have the figure now?"
"Sheela won't have it in the house. She's very afraid of it, but Bharat doesn't dare give it away because now Karunkar is his boss at the plantation."
"So you keep it.” Anita couldn't miss the way Remy's shoulders stiffened and her hands clenched the chair arms. It was obvious her aunt didn't want it either, but probably felt she had no choice. Anita certainly wouldn't want it living in her own flat—even as an art object.
Anita stared past her aunt, working out the sequence of events in her mind. “What's Karunkar like?"
"Oh, a very nice man,” Remy said. “Very good man. We long considered him as a match for Sheela, but she had met Bharat a couple of years ago and they grew very fond of each other."
* * * *
Late in the afternoon Anita went looking for Sheela, hoping to learn more about her views on the strange antique figure. She went from room to room to room, finally ending up in the first of the two cooking rooms.
"Not here,” the maidservant said as she looked up from chopping vegetables on the floor.
"I thought I would take a walk with her,” Anita said. “Do you know where she's gone?"
"Already gone walking.” She gave the onions a few deft slices and six perfect wedges rocked across the cutting board.
Since there weren't many places to go in this small village, Anita decided to set out and find Sheela. In the twenty-four hours since she had arrived, Anita had drastically changed her opinion of her cousin. Sheela had seemed fine, just a bit tired, on her first night, but now Anita could see the other woman was drifting dangerously close to serious emotional problems. She visited with friends, ate her meals, and the rest of the time retreated to her bedroom to sleep, with the door shut. Keeping the door shut was such an unusual step in an Indian household that Anita felt it was time to address Sheela directly on her peculiar and unhealthy behavior, and find out what was really troubling her.
Anita took the path into the village, skirting the occasional cardamom grove and hoping she wouldn't be hit by a bus careering down the road behind her. She reached the village center, which was a crossroads with a few shops at each corner, none more than two and a half stories tall, with storage being the main purpose of the top half story. The shops were those she expected—coffee, cooking equipment, fancy goods such as children's clothes, notebooks, sweets, toys, and the like, a newsagent no larger than a tea stall, and a gara
ge for all sorts of repairs. The shops were separated by narrow lanes that ran off into small neighborhoods or the fringes of the surrounding jungle. Anita wandered down one, around the corner of a compound wall, and along a row of small houses with low sapling fences—probably all belonging to a single family, she thought. As she turned the next corner, heading back to the main road, she stopped at the sound of voices. Nearby a man and a woman were talking. She stepped into the shadows of a hibiscus tree and waited. A moment later Sheela hurried by. After waiting another minute or two, a tall man with a white shirt tucked into dark pants came down the same lane and turned left, away from Anita and onto another path leading away from the village center.
The family liked to sit out on the veranda in the evening, a way to endure the nightly loss of electrical power and still enjoy the evening. After a late meal and storytelling to entertain some visiting children, Anita at last found herself alone with Sheela.
"I took a walk into the village this afternoon,” Anita said.
"Hmm.” Sheela leaned back in her chair and might have been asleep except for the dreamy look on her face as she stared up at the stars blinking through the trees. “Sometimes the stars are so thick and bright the night sky looks like a piece of lace.” She tilted her head a bit more and continued to stare upward.
"Do you walk into the village every day?"
"Me? No, sometimes.” Sheela didn't take her eyes off the stars.
"Bharat is a nice man,” Anita said. “I'm glad of a chance to get to know him better."
This seemed to get her attention, and she rolled her head until she could look directly at Anita. “Yes, a nice man."
"Do I have a smear of something on my face?” Anita said.
"Huh?"
"I thought perhaps I had some dirt smeared on my face, the way you are staring at me."
Sheela managed a little giggle and looked away. “So sorry, no. I am not myself these days."
"So your mother has told me."
AHMM, December 2009 Page 1
