AHMM, March 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  So there you had it. Five months ago Stevens had convinced Lena to rob her credit union, and then skipped with the money, leaving her high and dry. No wonder she reacted the way she did when I showed up there.

  As the magnitude of what I was getting involved in fully hit me, I started to panic. I'd never broken the law in my life—never even come close, and here I was getting in the middle of a two-hundred-grand robbery. As far as Lena was concerned, I was the guy who planned it and I was the guy with the money. I took out my Palm Pilot and brought up my schedule from five months earlier and saw that I had sales calls in Topeka at the time of the robbery. Topeka to Wichita is only a little over two hours. I could easily have traveled back and forth between the two cities. If Lena accused me of being the guy she robbed the credit union with, there would be no way of me proving otherwise.

  I decided then to leave Wichita. I'd follow through with my sales calls in Topeka, Lawrence, and Kansas City, and then I'd quit and find a job in another part of the country. Maybe California.

  After twenty minutes of driving hard, I was past the city limits and hitting the cornfields. Miles and miles of cornfields—as far as the eye could see. As I drove, though, I couldn't get rid of the shakiness inside, and I couldn't keep from thinking of Lena. About thirty miles from Topeka I stopped at a roadside diner, but I just didn't have much of an appetite and left most of my food untouched. I had a couple of cigarettes and then continued driving. By four, I pulled into a motel off the highway a couple of miles outside of Topeka.

  I sat in my car feeling too weak to move, as if all the strength had been bled out of me. I just kept thinking of Lena, of how beautiful she was. It was as if her image had been burned into my brain. I was thirty-two, and so far my life had been nothing but one restless moment after the next. I think that's why I ended up in sales, so I'd always be on the move, always trying to outrun the restlessness. I know this will sound sappy—after all, I knew almost nothing about Lena and only saw her for at most a minute—but I couldn't keep from thinking that somehow she could bring me some peace. And hell, if she could fall for Stevens, then why not me? I thought through a dozen different scenarios where I'd convince her to join me out in California. Nothing quite clicked, but I realized I couldn't just give up. At five o'clock I was still sitting in my car. I made the only decision I could make and headed back toward Wichita.

  * * * *

  I drove like a madman, my hand aching as I gripped the wheel. As I approached Wichita County, I called information and got the address for Maloney's. At a quarter to seven I pulled into Maloney's parking lot. From the outside, the place looked like a dive. A drab, concrete, one story structure with a lone neon sign out front. I waited in the car and watched as Lena pulled in a few minutes before seven. I felt my heart jump as I watched her get out of her car and enter Maloney's. She had changed her clothes and now wore a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. She was breathtaking in it. I followed her into the place.

  Maloney's was as much of a dive inside as it was out. The smell of stale cigarettes permeated the place, and there were just enough overhead fluorescent lights to keep the room mostly in shadows. About a half dozen guys were sitting at the bar, nobody at any of the tables. Lena jumped a bit when I took hold of her elbow, but she let me lead her to one of the tables in the back where we'd be able to talk without being overheard.

  What next?” she asked.

  "Let me get us some drinks. What do you want?"

  She shrugged. “I guess a beer."

  I went to the bar and got two drafts. When I returned to the table, Lena was watching me intently. Her skin had lost most of its color.

  "You were watching me from the parking lot when I pulled in, weren't you?"

  I didn't say anything. Instead, I looked away from those mesmerizing green eyes and took a long drink of my beer.

  "Why'd you let me walk in here?” she asked.

  Confused, I asked, “What else was I going to do?"

  She shook her head, smiling over some private joke. “Again, what next?"

  As I watched the anxiety tighten the skin around her eyes and mouth, I wanted to end the charade, but I didn't see how I could do it without her either walking out on me or not believing me. So I kept the lie going, mumbling something about how she was all I'd been able to think about the last five months. I felt a hotness flushing my face as I added, “I couldn't just leave things the way we ended them before."

  The anxiety in her eyes was too much for me. I reached out to take hold of her hand, anything to try to comfort her, but she jerked back from me and knocked my beer over.

  "That was an accident,” she said.

  "I know, don't worry about it."

  "I'll get you another one."

  "You don't have to—"

  She didn't bother listening to me. As I watched her walk back to the bar, I felt sick inside. I decided enough was enough, I'd tell her the truth and let the chips fall where they may.

  When she brought me back another beer, I looked away from her as I drank down half of it. “I'm not who you think I am,” I told her. I tried to make eye contact but couldn't quite do it. Self-consciously, I wiped a sleeve across my face. “I'm not Dave Stevens. I know I look like him, but I'm not him.” I paused, then forced myself to meet her stare. “I know about the two hundred thousand you two stole. I'm not going to say anything to anyone about it."

  She sat quietly, her eyes narrowed to thin slits as she stared at me. I waited for her to say something, but nothing came.

  "I don't know why I pretended to be Stevens before,” I said after a while. “When I saw you I guess I went kind of nuts and, well, from your reaction, I knew you knew Stevens. It just happened. I'm sorry."

  Still nothing from her. “I know this is going to sound crazy,” I went on, “but things could work out with us. Besides, you can't stay in Wichita. Sooner or later someone's going to find out about the money."

  I realized I was slurring my words, and my eyelids had gotten heavy. I put my elbow down in the middle of the spilt beer so I could support my head.

  "So what if someone did,” Lena was saying, her voice barely above a whisper. “You were the one who stole it. No one can connect me to it."

  I had gotten so tired. I could barely keep my eyes open. The next thing I knew the side of my face hit the table. Then blackness.

  Consciousness flickered on and off for the next few minutes. At one point I remember two guys dragging me to a car. Lena was saying something about me having too much to drink, but that she'd take care of me. I tried to say something, but nothing audible came out. Then the world disappeared, and the next thing I knew I was being bounced back and forth. I was still mostly out of it, and it took a while for me to realize that I was sitting in the passenger seat of Lena's car. As she drove, a smoldering intensity burned on her face.

  When Lena noticed me, her lips twisted into a thin smile. “Finally awake, huh?” she asked.

  I was being jostled back and forth in my seat like a rag doll. Whatever I'd been drugged with, I still didn't have the strength to talk or even hold myself upright. From what I could tell, we were on a dirt road.

  "I don't know what type of game you thought you were playing, but it wasn't very bright of you to give me a second chance,” she said.

  In the moonlight her face looked pale and grim, but I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I let them close.

  Next thing I was aware of was a clapping noise, mixed in with someone yelling over and over again. “Wake up.” Lena was slapping me in the face. When I opened my eyes, she pushed something hard and cold against my temple.

  "You should be able to move by now,” she said. “Get out of the car."

  "Lena, this is all a mistake—” I had to stop for a moment, my throat feeling as if I'd swallowed a handful of sawdust. “You don't have to do this..."

  "Shut up!” She pushed the gun barrel harder into my temple. “If you don't get out now, I'll kill you right here and leave you for the c
rows and raccoons."

  I caught a glimpse of her face. There was nothing beautiful about it anymore; it had been transformed into something hard and violent. With some effort, I opened the car door and got to my feet. Lena followed, keeping the gun trained on my chest.

  "Start walking,” she ordered.

  We were on some sort of path. I could barely lift my feet and moved about as fast as if I were wading through a pool of molasses.

  She said, “I have to admit I'm curious. How'd you do it, Dave?"

  "I don't know what you're asking. And I told you before, I'm not Stevens—"

  "You don't want to tell me, fine, you can keep your secret. But I would've thought you had more brains than to show up the way you did. Especially after last time."

  My eyes were starting to adjust to the moonlight. I could make out what looked like a small structure up ahead.

  "Where are we going?” I asked.

  "You should remember this place. This is where we said our last good-byes."

  As I got closer to it, I realized the structure was the remains of a shack. We walked past it, and that was when I saw the well.

  "Lena, please—"

  "Shut up!"

  The base of the well was stone, maybe two feet high. She backed me up until I was against it.

  "Do me a favor, Dave, this time die like you're supposed to,” Lena muttered half under her breath. With her arm outstretched, her gun was only inches away from me.

  In the moonlight, I could see the knuckles on her gun hand turn white. I could see my death shining brightly in her eyes.

  Something happened then. I'm not sure what the noise was—an animal howling or maybe a groan of some type—but whatever it was, it seemed to come from deep inside the well, and it distracted her for a split second, which was long enough for me to grab her gun hand.

  My muscles were still rubbery, and she fought with a manic intensity, but I was still able to slam her gun hand down against the base of the well. The gun tumbled down into it. We both froze, waiting for the sound of a splash, but there was nothing. It just disappeared as if it had fallen into a bottomless hole. I faced Lena then. The pale grimness faded from her eyes and mouth. She started to look more like she had when I first saw her. Beautiful, vulnerable...

  "Dave,” she said, her voice a breathless whisper, “let's forget this. We can still work something out."

  I hit her in the jaw and knocked her out cold. After lowering her to the ground, I searched through her pockets and found my cell phone on her, then called the police and told them a woman had tried to kill me, and that there was a dead body in a well. My phone had GPS tracking, and I gave them my coordinates. The person I spoke to told me that officers would be right out.

  It took longer than I expected for the police to show up. While I waited, Lena started to come to. I flipped her over and sat on her. As she realized what was happening, she started swearing at me, but I ignored it. When she heard the police sirens she struggled harder, and I saw the same brittle grimness from before come over her face.

  "You're making a big mistake,” she forced out, in something that was more of a hiss than a human voice. “We can still split the money instead of both of us going to prison."

  I ignored her and pushed down harder to keep her on the ground. When I heard car doors open and slam, I yelled where I was and kept yelling until I saw two wide-eyed state troopers come through the woods. They both had their guns drawn.

  "Help!” Lena yelped, her voice mostly a hoarse whisper at this point.

  "Move slowly off her,” one of the officers warned me.

  I shook my head.

  "My name is Andy Lenscher,” I said. “This is Lena Hanson. Five months ago she stole two hundred thousand dollars from the People's Credit Union of Wichita. She killed the man she stole it with. His body's in the well."

  The two officers exchanged glances. One officer kept his service revolver trained on me while the other flashed a light down into the well.

  "There's something down there,” he said, his face as white as the moon.

  While we waited for the emergency workers to come, I told the two officers the whole story. They looked skeptical, but they put Lena in handcuffs. I could tell from her expression that for the first time, she realized I wasn't Dave Stevens.

  It didn't take long for the emergency workers to get Dave Stevens's body out of the well. While his face was mostly rotted away, there was enough left for me to see the resemblance. One of the EMT workers even noticed it and remarked about it to me. I asked him why I didn't hear the gun splash when it dropped in there.

  "Well's bone-dry. The gun must've landed on him."

  I thought about the sound that distracted Lena enough to keep her from killing me. I know it probably didn't come from the well. It probably came from an animal in the woods, or maybe it did come from Stevens's body adjusting a certain way. But as I looked at him, I'd like to think that it was some kind of cosmic settlement for all the grief he had caused me. That somehow he saved my life.

  As they carted away his corpse, I nodded farewell to Dave Stevens.

  Copyright (c) 2006 Dave Zeltserman

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  SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER

  The girl had two hundred pounds, and he got every penny of it, and she utterly disappeared. And Scotland Yard couldn't find her.

  —Lord Dunsany

  From “Two Bottles of Relish” (192-) by Lord Dunsany

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  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

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  MYSTERY CLASSIC: THE CLEVER COCKATOO by E. C. BENTLEY

  "Well, that's my sister,” said Mrs. Lancey, in a low voice. “What do you think of her, now you've spoken to her?"

  Philip Trent, newly arrived from England, stood by his hostess within the loggia of an Italian villa looking out upon a prospect of such loveliness as has enchanted and enslaved the Northern mind from age to age. Before the villa lay a long paved terrace, and by the balustrade of it a woman stood looking out over the lake and conversing with a tall, grey-haired man.

  "Ten minutes is rather a short acquaintance,” Trent replied. “Besides, I was attending rather more to her companion. Mynheer Scheffer is the first Dutchman I have met on social terms. One thing about Lady Bosworth is clear to me, though. She is the most beautiful thing in sight, which is saying a good deal."

  Mrs. Lancey laughed.

  "But I want you to take a personal interest in her, Philip; it means nothing, I know, when you talk like that. I care a great deal about Isabel; she is far more to me than any other woman. That's rather rare between sisters, I believe. And it makes me wretched to know that there's something wrong with her."

  "With her health, do you mean? One wouldn't think so."

  "Yes, but I fear it is that."

  "Is it possible?” said Trent. “Why, Edith, the woman has the complexion of a child and the step of a racehorse and eyes like jewels. She looks like Atalanta in blue linen."

  "Did Atalanta marry an Egyptian mummy?” enquired Mrs. Lancey.

  "It is true,” said Trent thoughtfully, “that Sir Peregrine looks rather as if he had been dug up somewhere. But I think he owes much of his professional success to that. People like a great doctor to look more or less unhealthy."

  "Perhaps they do; but I don't think the doctor's wife enjoys it very much. Isabel is always happiest when away from him—if he were here now she would be quite different from what you see. You know, Philip, their marriage hasn't been a success—I always knew it wouldn't be."

  Trent shrugged his shoulders.

  "Let's drop the subject, Edith. Tell me why you want me to know about Lady Bosworth having something the matter with her. I'm not a physician."

  "No; but there's something very puzzling about it, as you will see; and you are clever at getting at the truth about things other people don't understand. Now, I'll tell you no more. I only want you to observe Bell
a particularly at dinner this evening, and tell me afterwards what you think. You'll be sitting opposite to her, between me and Agatha Stone. Now go and talk to her and the Dutchman."

  "Scheffer's appearance interests me,” remarked Trent. “He has a face curiously like Frederick the Great's, and yet there's a difference—he doesn't look quite as if his soul were lost for ever and ever."

  "Well, go and ask him about it,” suggested Mrs. Lancey.

  When the party of seven sat down to dinner that evening, Lady Bosworth had just descended from her room. Trent perceived no change in her; she talked enthusiastically of the loveliness of the Italian evening, and joined in a conversation that was general and lively. It was only after some ten minutes that she fell silent, and that a new look came over her face.

  Little by little all animation departed from it. Her eyes grew heavy and dull, her red lips were parted in a foolish smile, and to the high, fresh tint of her cheek there succeeded a disagreeable pallor.

  All charm, all personal force had departed. It needed an effort to recall her quaint, vivacious talk of an hour ago, now that she sat looking vaguely at the table before her, and uttering occasionally a blank monosyllable in reply to the discourse that Mr. Scheffer poured into her ear. It was not, Trent told himself, that anything abnormal was done. It was the staring fact that Lady Bosworth was not herself, but someone wholly of another kind, that opened a new and unknown spring of revulsion in the recesses of his heart.

  An hour later Mrs. Lancey carried Trent off to a garden-seat facing the lake.

  "Well?” she said quietly.

  "It's very strange, and rather ghastly,” he answered, nursing his knee. “But if you hadn't told me it puzzled you, I should have thought it was easy to find an explanation."

  "Drugs, you mean?” He nodded. “Of course everybody must think so. George does, I know. It's horrible!” declared Mrs. Lancey, with a thump on the arm of the seat. “Agatha Stone began hinting at it after the first few days. Gossiping cat! She loathes Isabel, and she'll spread it round everywhere that my sister is a drug-fiend. Philip, I asked her point blank if she was taking anything that could account for it. She was much offended at that; told me I had known her long enough to know she never had done and never would do such a thing. And though Isabel has her faults, she's absolutely truthful."