AHMM, June 2012

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The building's main room was long and cluttered with everything a man could want for sale: metal pots and cans with food in them, wooden boxes with arbuckles ground coffees burned into the side, tools to shoe a horse, or kill a man, hanging from overhead. The place smelled of tanned hides and tobacco smoke, though a piece of smoldering sage in one corner confused these scents. The entire building—from the floor to the ceiling to the waist-high counter that ran the length of the room—was made of wood beams. Above the counter hung a wood sign with j.b. moore's crystal trading post burned into it like the brands put on cattle. Two Diné men stood in front of the counter speaking to another Bilagaana about a saddle. They traded offers with long pauses in between.

  With a wave, the Bilaganna led Will and Aditsan to another room in back where more blankets and rugs than the boy had ever seen sat stacked in piles as deep as his waist. The patterns were unlike anything he'd seen his aunt weave. They made his eyes hurt with whirling figures, slashes like lightning, and diamonds of every size. The boy knew then that the Bilagaana must be the Naalyehe ya sidahi his aunt talked about who sold Diné blankets and rugs far away.

  When they were alone, the Naalyehe ya sidahi turned to them and removed his glasses.

  “What brings you two all the way out here?”

  His face showed neither mistrust nor want but merely curiosity.

  “Two days back, I found out that three guys I hired were stealing from me. Things that any museum would be proud to own.”

  The boy didn't correct the cowboy and say that so far they had found only fragments.

  “Why come here?”

  “They weren't like us. They were Navajo. The things they stole, they wouldn't be of any use to them. They must have taken them to sell.”

  The Naalyehe ya sidahi tipped his head to one side as though angry. No one likes to be called a thief, Aditsan thought, not even by association.

  “I still don't understand.”

  “You're the only one who could move things like that.”

  The Naalyehe ya sidahi raised his eyebrows and pursed his mouth before speaking.

  “Even if I were offered such things, what makes you think I'd take them? My business is in rugs.”

  Will bowed forward as he spoke.

  “I know that, but they don't. That's why I thought maybe you'd tell me if they stopped in.”

  The Naalyehe ya sidahi turned his back and ran his hand over a rug longer than he was tall. It was similar in pattern and color to Aditsan's shawl, a chief's blanket striped in black, white, and blue, though it looked more worn, like it had survived several generations.

  “There's no market for antiquities,” the Naalyehe ya sidahi said. “This blanket? I've been trying to sell it for three years. Nobody will take it, even when I tell them it goes back to before Bosque Redondo.”

  “Are you saying those boys were here?”

  “I'm saying forget about anything they took. Nobody wants it but you. Whatever you found, there's more just like it buried nearby. This place grows off old, broken pots.”

  The cowboy shook his head no.

  “You don't understand,” he said. “Those weren't just any pots. That site is historic.”

  The Naalyehe ya sidahi turned around and faced the cowboy, then looked to the boy. Though his accent was poor, with the wrong intonations in pitch and emphasis, the trader spoke in the boy's own Diné language.

  “Do you know a Sani in Toadlena?”

  Aditsan nodded yes, having heard of him before from his aunt.

  “Go ask him. If anybody knows what happened to your pots, it's him.”

  * * * *

  Although they followed a different path, the trip back across the Chuska Mountains was no easier. The heights were as great, and the distance even farther. Again they camped below the pass, eating canned tomatoes and beans that they'd purchased at the trading post. After they lay down, a light snow soaked the boy's blanket and threw him into paroxysms of coughing that kept him awake much of the night. By morning, the snow veiled the path. His only navigational tool was divots worn by other travelers, but this often failed him when the trail traversed smooth rock faces. They became lost many times, and Will seemed impatient, his horse stamping its hooves as the boy dismounted to look for cracked mud. Eventually, the cowboy lead himself, racing forward and back until he located hoof prints.

  “It must be them,” he said.

  He pushed on without stopping until, as daylight faded, they emerged onto a flat plain with a sparse gathering of traditional hogans. Most were barely distinguishable from the landscape, low mounds made of sticks and mud. One stood out, though. It was an eight-sided box built of timbers, with a pitched roof and a narrow window. The cowboy walked his horse straight to it and entered through the deerskin doorway. Seeing no choice, the boy followed.

  Inside, sitting on a wood crate, was the Sani with a face cracked and baked like the red rock of the desert. The old man wore traditional clothing—a dense blanket of browns and grays wrapped around his shoulders, a headband twisted and tied at the back, and a large silver necklace with an oval, turquoise pendant—and extended a traditional handshake to the boy, their palms barely touching.

  It was as the Naalyehe ya sidahi had said: “more a museum than a store.” Unlike the trading post, there was no food or tools for sale. Stacked around the walls on low shelves made of mud brick were wedding baskets, rugs, silver jewelry and clothing. In one corner stood a shelf of ancient pottery, white slip with black designs painted over the top. The cowboy squatted in front of the pieces, turning them over in his hands and feeling their insides, before speaking.

  “You've got a great collection,” he said.

  He looked back over his shoulder at the Sani, who nodded.

  “Where'd you get so many pieces?”

  The Sani stared toward the floor for several seconds before answering.

  “People bring me things they wish to sell.”

  “I hear there were some pots found out on the eastern end of the reservation not too far back. Looked like these.”

  He nodded toward the wall containing the pottery collection.

  “Anybody bring you anything like that?”

  The old man shook his head.

  “How about those there?” The cowboy pointed to the wall. “You know where they come from?”

  The Sani looked up with an indecipherable expression.

  “Who can say?”

  The cowboy walked in a circle around the hogan with his arms crossed, his toes dragging the dusty floor as though excavating what lay buried there. For a moment the boy thought that he would kick the shelves and destroy all the pottery. Instead, he picked up an olla and held the large vase close to his chest like a baby.

  “Things like these need to be protected. A museum will make sure they last forever. Here—” He looked around as though taking in the small hut for the first time. “—they may not last a year.”

  He was so tall that his head hit the roof where it met the wall. When he moved toward the center of the hogan, he looked down over both the Diné.

  “These things have lasted many generations here and will so for many more,” the Sani said. “What good will they do to anyone in a mu-see-um?”

  The cowboy shook his head and turned to go, still clutching the large pot to his chest. Over his shoulder, he spoke.

  “I'm keeping this one until the others are returned. Tell those thieves no one will pay them more.”

  He walked outside, and the boy heard him unhitch his horse before he called.

  “Come on, Abe.”

  The boy waited for the sound of the horse's footfalls to trail off before speaking in his own Diné language.

  “Sani, I'm sorry for bringing him here. I didn't know he planned to steal from you.”

  The old man nodded but kept silent.

  “I can bring you others. I know where the pots he wants are.”

  The old man nodded again and waited.

  “I
hid them in a cave where the water runs deep in the earth.”

  Aditsan waited for some counsel from the old man, but hearing none, continued.

  “What can I do with them? The Bilagaana believes they were stolen. If he finds out it was me who took them . . .”

  He could not imagine how to finish the thought.

  “Why did you take them?” the old man said.

  The boy hesitated as though considering his motive for the first time.

  “The Bilagaana only wanted to possess them. He wants to carry them away from here as they did with me.”

  The old man stood slowly, walked across the hogan with a limp, and reached for something that hung from a stake on one wall. As he turned, the boy saw that it was a club with a stone head fixed by leather twine to a curving handle of white antler.

  “Take this.”

  Aditsan accepted the club and felt its weight, the balance of the head with the shaft. He even dared to swing it once through the air. When he tucked the club into the waist of his pants, it was concealed beneath his chief's blanket. He shook hands with the Sani and pushed aside the deerskin flap at his door to see the cowboy waiting fifty paces away. The Bilagaana kept his back turned, but the pot he had taken was lashed to his saddle. From his posture, which was erect and rigid, the boy sensed he was angry. Aditsan mounted his own horse and followed as the cowboy led him away from the village.

  The cowboy rode a few strides ahead toward the darkness over the mountains, never looking back to check on the boy. Several times, Aditsan looked over his shoulder as the village receded from his sight, then at the cowboy, and finally at the pot.

  The boy coaxed his horse to a trot with a stab to its ribs. Even when he pulled even, the cowboy stared straight ahead as though Aditsan were not there. The boy thought of his time in Fort Collins, of the missionaries who had trained him to speak English, of the trading post and its supplies, of his parents back in Tsé Bit'a'i, of the people who once worshipped at the great kiva, and of the distance between them all.

  When they were deep into the shade of the junipers, he allowed his free hand to slip to the smooth bone of the club. He ran a finger along the pointed head and then tightened his grip on the handle. In his chest, his heart pounded at twice its usual rate, as if the club were a gun that might explode in his hand, unbidden.

  Copyright © 2012 David Hagerty

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  Department: BOOKED & PRINTED

  by Robert C. Hahn

  The means of mirth are as varied as those of murder, and this month's authors illustrate the wide variety of approaches open to the humorous mystery writer.

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  Tim Dorsey's fifteenth novel featuring Serge A. Storms, Pineapple Grenade (Morrow, 25.99), once again finds the manic Serge busy meting out extreme justice in elaborately quirky and amusing ways. Serge A. Storms careens through the state of Florida almost always accompanied by his stoner friend Coleman, who aids and abets him to the best of his impaired ability. Serge delights in Florida's history and is fond of providing lengthy discourses on esoteric factoids while lamenting the modern “improvements” made in the name of “progress.”

  But Serge's most endearing quality is his willingness to avenge all the stupid, irritating, irresponsible things people do to annoy him. Sometimes the crime is serious—carjacking, for instance—and sometimes laughable, such as littering. Sometimes it's merely boorish behavior that compels Serge to action, such as that of an airline leaving passengers to wait on the tarmac in an indefinitely delayed plane. Regardless, Serge's response, though sometimes deadly, is always inventive and almost always hilariously fitting.

  In Pineapple Grenade, Serge decides with his usual insouciance to be a spy and so simply declares that he is one. After all, Miami is “the diplomatic capital of America” with sixty consulates within a two-mile radius.” He then walks into the consulate of Costa Gorda—a small South American country whose reform president is being secretly undermined by clandestinely funded rebels—and uttering only a few confusing words, walks out believing he's been hired.

  Naturally Serge attracts the attentions of two competing CIA station chiefs who each suspect the other may be working with him. The confusion is compounded by political mastermind Malcolm Glide who, despite having no official position, controls, among others things, the head of Homeland Security. The secret of Glide's success is simple: He's discovered that in America, “it isn't enough to disagree with your opponent anymore. True patriots hate their f—ing guts!”

  Dorsey's frenetic style and hyperbole won't appeal to everyone, but his satire is sharp, his barbs hit dead center, and the inventiveness of Serge's mayhem is so outrageous and ingenious that chuckles and belly laughs keep the pages turning.

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  Lisa Lutz's investigative family, the Spellmans, is always in the throes of domestic troubles, either their own or that of their clients, and they collide in spectacular fashion in Trail of the Spellmans.

  Lisa Lutz introduced Izzy (Isabel) Spellman and her quirky family who operate Spellman Investigations in San Francisco in The Spellman Files in 2007. Her debut effort was an immediate success as it garnered nominations for Anthony, Barry, Dilys, and Macavity awards. Her fifth entry in the series, Trail of the Spellmans (Simon and Schuster, $25), is the best yet as both the professional interests of the investigators and the personal relationships amongst the Spellman's collide in spectacular fashion.

  The firm was purchased by patriarch Albert Spellman and matriarch Olivia Spellman who have operated it for thirty-five years. Izzy, now thirty-four, has been working for the firm, not always to its benefit, since she was twelve; sister Rae, a junior in college, works for the firm part-time, while the eldest child, David, is a lawyer and chooses not to work for the family business. Demetrius Merriweather, who served fifteen years in prison for a murder he didn't commit, was rescued by the Spellmans and now works for them although he is more like a member of the family than an employee.

  Lutz creates a double helping of puzzling and amusing mysteries in this madcap gem: Olivia's sudden spate of outside interests including a book club, pottery, yoga, Russian, crochet, and cooking classes; a rupture between David and Rae, which neither will talk about; and an inexplicable developing friendship between irascible (and prejudiced) Grammy Spellman and black, ex-con Demetrius.

  Three Spellman Investigations cases are also ongoing simultaneously: Adam Cooper hires them to follow his sister, Margaret Slayter wants them to follow her husband, and college student Vivien Blake's parents want them to track their daughter's behavior. Early on Izzy warns the reader “Surely all three cases will become ensnared and converge at the end. But don't get ahead of yourself.” Good advice because as the stories unfold there are surprising and delightful treats in store.

  Lutz successfully employs unusual narrative strategies that, in lesser hands, often feel mannered, such as Izzy's asides addressed directly to the reader, or the frequent footnotes that give the air of a term paper. Here, such techniques seem fitting as the as the quirkiest Spellman narrates the activities of her quirky relatives and their clients.

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  Lois Winston takes a gentler approach in her second Anastasia Pollack crafting mystery in which the magazine columnist once again finds herself embroiled in murder in Death By Killer Mop Doll (Midnight Ink, $14.95). Lois Winston introduced crafts editor Anastasia Pollack in last year's Assault with a Deadly Glue Gun.

  Anastasia lives with her mother-in-law Lucille Pollack, a confirmed radical and rabble-rouser, and thanks to her recently deceased husband, she is saddled with plenty of debts and not much income. She also has sons, fourteen-year-old Nick and sixteen-year-old Alex, to contend with. The arrival of her name-burdened mother, Flora Sudberry Periwinkle Ramirez Scoffield Goldberg O'Keefe, ups the domestic thermostat into dangerous regions. Flora is as conservative as Lucille is
liberal, and the two clash constantly. Flora, who trades in husbands like automobiles, brings with her her latest conquest, Lou Beaumont, a TV producer.

  Anastasia scoffs when Flora tells her that Lou is going to make Anastasia and the staff at American Woman the focus of his TV talk show You Heard it Here First. But it is no joke, as Trimedia, the conglomerate that owns American Woman, also owns the TV network that produces Lou's show.

  While the TV show sounds like a good and profitable idea, there are immediate issues—opposition from the show's twin hosts, Vince Alto and Monica Rivers and a clause in the Trimedia contract that requires the magazine staff to appear on the show without additional compensation. That leaves Anastasia and her co-workers, food editor Cloris McWerther, editorial director Naomi Dreyfus, decorating editor Jeanie Sims, and fashion editor Tessa Lisbon ready to revolt. Add in Lou's bizarre assistant producer Sheri Rabbstein, who really runs the show, and the recipe for disaster is almost complete.

  The murder of the show's producer is the final ingredient. Suspects include the show's unhappy hosts and the conscripted and unwilling magazine staff, including Anastasia whose cleverly constructed mop doll is found with the body. Anastasia once again plays the unwilling sleuth pressed into action by circumstances beyond her control as the crafty murderer strikes again.

  Winston plays the oil and water relationship of Flora and Lucille for plenty of laughs and provides intermittent craft instructions for creating mop dolls while letting Anastasia shine as a risk-taking investigator investigator who doesn't always know when to quit.

  Copyright © 2012 Robert C. Hahn

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  Mystery Classic: AFTERNOON OF A PHONY

  by Cornell Woolrich, Selected and Introduced by Francis M. Nevins

  The Father of Noir

  Of all the authors who excell at turning our spines to columns of ice, Cornell Woolrich is the supreme master of the art, the Hitchcock of the written word, you might say. In novels such as The Bride Wore Black, Phantom Lady, and Night Has a Thousand Eyes, he created the literary sources that would be adapted into the kinds of movies we now call “film noir.”