AHMM, July-August 2008

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Mrs. Rowinski nodded.

  "Then left you?"

  "Not right away. He came down. He stood over me and cursed me. He took the poison from the cabinet and looked at it. Then he put it on a table near the cabinet.” She closed her eyes, then opened them. “He came again."

  "He came again?” Wyla said. “How much later?"

  "I don't know. I'd lain there for a while. It seemed a long time to me. He stood over me. He cursed me again. I heard him. I don't know what happened after that. Until I woke up here.” She pulled the cross on the rosary toward her lips, then lowered it. Her thin lips moved and her eyes closed. Wyla leaned to hear the words. “Forgive me, for I have sinned."

  Wyla stood, shaken. He refused to push her any more. She opened her eyes and Wyla saw in them a resignation, like an overflowing creek subsiding after a storm. “I'll leave you now,” he said. “Your niece will be in. You won't have to talk to me again for a while."

  Mrs. Rowinski did not answer. She stared ahead, as if seeing something from which she could not remove her eyes.

  Wyla left the room. He headed back to Mrs. Rowinski's house. He parked and stood looking up at the old house. Old house. Old poison. And an old hatred.

  He entered the house and went straight to the stairs. The glass fragments had not yet been collected by the forensics team. Wyla stepped round them and took the first step down. He stopped. He did not want to find the poison. He thought of Mrs. Rowinski clutching her rosary, lifting it to her lips and then withdrawing it. What was it she had said? Forgiveness, Wyla thought. She had asked for forgiveness.

  Wyla sighed. He was a detective, and it was his job to find the poison. Mrs. Rowinski had the poison, and the possessor of the poison was the murderer.

  Wyla continued down the stairs, counting them to shut his mind off.

  In the basement, he went over to the table where Mrs. Rowinski had seen Zimmer put the box of poison. Nothing.

  He stood, letting his mind begin to sift what Mrs. Rowinski had said: “He came again."

  He thought of what Lander had said. “Find the poison and find the murderer."

  Mrs. Rowinski had kept it in the cabinet.

  Wyla opened the cabinet. The top shelf was stuffed with a pile of old Life magazines and newspapers. Wyla pulled them out.

  He reached in and took out the box with the skull and crossbones. Its thick gray cardboard was yellow with age. He turned it over and looked at the ingredients: thallium.

  Wyla looked from the cabinet to the table beside it. Peter Zimmer had put the box on the table. Why wasn't it there? He must have rushed home, knowing that he had been ingesting poison for some time. He'd called his brother, telling him what had happened and why.

  He had certainly told the doctor and would most certainly have told his brother.

  Wyla clicked off times in his mind. Michael Zimmer had brought his brother to the hospital at four. Peter Zimmer had been at Mrs. Rowinski's at noon. Four hours to account for. Michael drove up from Lansdale. That accounted for an hour an a half. What about the remaining two and one half hours?

  Suppose the second visit had come not from Peter, who was already ill, but from Michael Zimmer. Suppose Michael took some poison, put the box back into the cabinet where Peter might have easily told him Mrs. Rowinski kept it. Maybe he gave the final dose to his brother, ridding himself of the two people who knew of his role at Katyn so many decades ago. Then he had waited until his brother was so ill he could barely speak before driving him to the hospital.

  Wyla remembered the relief in Michael Zimmer when he'd talked to him. Peter and Mrs. Rowinski. Both gone. And the past erased. Or so he thought.

  Wyla turned and looked at the fragments of glass. She must have dropped one at the top of the stairs when Peter confronted her. The other flew down with her and broke at the bottom.

  Mrs. Rowinski had poisoned Peter Zimmer all right, but Wyla would bet that she had not administered the final dose.

  Wyla jumped when his cell phone rang.

  "We just got the police report,” Reilly said. “Michael Zimmer is dead. A car accident, they think. On Route 611. A truck accident again. Damn highway."

  Wyla caught his breath. “What do you mean by ‘they think'?"

  He heard Reilly rustling papers.

  "Well, the accident was head-on. The driver of the truck claims that Zimmer drove his car right smack into him. Maybe the guy had a heart attack or something. One more thing. The police found an envelope with three thousand dollars in it."

  "I see.” Wyla stood for a moment with his head bowed. He was sure now. He had told Michael Zimmer that Mrs. Rowinski would live. Had Michael been worried enough to drive carelessly? Perhaps Michael's death had been an accident. But perhaps it had been suicide. Wyla thought so. He knew now that he'd also seen determination in Michael Zimmer. If it took murder and suicide for his granddaughter, Michael Zimmer would do it. As for the money, it explained Peter Zimmer's return to Wilkes-Barre. He was getting or extorting money from his brother, maybe for silence.

  "Martin? You there yet?” Reilly said.

  Wyla decided. “Sorry for the delay in telling you this. I'm calling off the forensics team. Before he left town, Mike Zimmer called me. Said he found rat poison in his brother's apartment. Said he found a suicide note. I'll explain all this later."

  Reilly didn't respond. Wyla was pretty sure Reilly didn't buy the story that cleared Mrs. Rowinski. But he'd go along once he got the truth. The niece too.

  Wyla rang off. It would be hard. He'd have to persuade Mrs. Rowinski that the poison she administered had not killed Peter Zimmer. He'd have to face skepticism from his superiors. But he had a good chance of getting away with it. Nobody would care that much about two old people and a war fading into the history books.

  Copyright (c) 2008 Marianne Wilski Strong

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  Fiction: THE TREASURE HUNTER by Brendan DuBois

  At the town dump in Purmort, New Hampshire, people come by to exchange gossip, to admire someone's new pickup truck, to get weather predictions from the old timers, to pick through the free offerings at the dump store (or treasures, depending on one's point of view), and every spring and fall to pass out campaign brochures for various official candidates ranging from town cemetery trustee to President of the United States.

  Oh, yeah, there's two other things people do at the dump. The first is dumping trash. The second is doing business.

  Being the sole female private investigator in this part of rural New Hampshire, my clients usually come to see me at my tiny office near the town common, but on this spring Saturday, a client came right up to me at the town dump.

  The town dump is officially known as the Purmort Recycling Center and Waste Transfer Station, but nobody calls it that, except for these new people in town who drive Volvos and SUVs with their old Massachusetts license plates. It's the dump, though recycling does occur. People drive up to a squat concrete building with open bays and dump household trash in one bay, folded cardboard in another, bottles in another, plastic soda bottles in yet another, and aluminum cans in another. Saturday afternoons are usually busy at the dump, but since my trash collection for the week is pretty minimal—just the debris collected from me and a moody cat named Roscoe—I can typically get in and out within a few minutes, depending on the traffic.

  Traffic. Oh yes, the traffic, for there are about six parking spaces in front of the dump building, and if a couple of the local restaurant owners come in with their weekly haul, and if a couple of good ol’ boys start chatting over the hoods of their respective pickup trucks about how their misusses won't let them go fishing next weekend, then traffic can back up all the way out to the main road.

  Which is why I try to be fast, going in and out, but on this Saturday morning, business stumbled my way.

  I had just finished dumping three diet cola cans in the alum-inum can bin and was working my way back to my Ford Explorer when a heavyset man stopped in front of
me, black beard down to his chest, wearing stained tan chino workpants and jacket.

  "You K. C. Dunbar, the private eye?” he asked.

  I froze, glancing at the relative safety of my Explorer just a few feet away. I try not to discriminate against male clients, but I've found that most of them come into my office humiliated at having to hire a woman to do something they can't do, and that often leads to heated words and threats of violence when I can't solve their problem with a phone call or two. Which is why when I do meet male clients, I make sure my Ruger .357 magnum revolver is within easy reach.

  Which it wasn't at the moment. It was snug in its leather holster in the glove compartment of my SUV, and this menacing bulky fellow was between me and it. I suppose if push came to shove, the other men about me at the dump site would come to my aid, but in the process, I might get bumped, scraped, or bruised, and that's not high on my list of things to do on a Saturday afternoon.

  But I'm not one for backing down. Near me was a scrap lumber pile, and if my questioner made any move, I would step back and take a surplus two-by-four and smash it over his head, and if I overreacted, I would blame it on the vapors or the sun in my eyes or something.

  So I said, “Yes, I'm K. C. Dunbar. What's up?"

  He stared at me and shuffled his feet. “I'd like to hire you, that's what."

  I gave him my best not-in-your-lifetime-am-I-flirting-with-you smile and said, “That's nice. My office hours are Monday through Friday, nine a.m. to four p.m., and Saturday, ten to noon, unless I'm working an investigation. If I'm not around, leave a message and we'll make an appointment and—"

  He shook his head. “Can't do that. I'm working up in Trenton, clearing off a lot for the new Wal-Mart. Working dawn to dusk. Can't get the time off to see you during the week. I need to see you now."

  I shook my head. “Sorry, I can't help you. My policy is to meet clients in my office in town and—"

  And just as I thought, he took a step toward me, and I took a step toward the lumber pile, and then he said, “I need you to find my mom."

  Then this bear of a man, who looked like he killed small animals for a hobby, started blubbering like a five-year-old whose puppy just went lost.

  "Please?” he asked, tears running down his cheeks. “Will you please find my mom?"

  What could I say?

  I said, “Let's talk.” And that's how it started.

  * * * *

  Seeing the line of cars backing up and the impatient looks of the drivers—and who could blame them, sitting there with smelly trash in the back, while their chatty neighbors passed the time in front of the dumpster bins?—I said, “Look, let's meet over at the dump store, okay?"

  And he nodded and sniffed and ran the back of his hand across his nose. He went to the other side of the lot to a rusted and muddy Jeep, and I got into my Ford and drove the hundred or so feet to the dump store.

  The store is an open shack, about twenty feet square, where used books, CDs, clothes, and other bits and pieces of electronics and furnishings are tossed inside and picked over by bargain hunters and the like. But don't be misled by the name. Nothing's for sale, it's always free, and it's first come, first serve. Whatever's left over at the end of the week is thrown into the main trash pile. I always stop at the dump store on the way out—I'm a sucker for old paperback detective novels, but I leave everything else to the pros, which we do have. They're called seagulls by their less charitable neighbors, and they have a delightful scam working. What they do is salvage what they can, take it back home, and on Sunday, they sell it at yard sales or tag sales, depending on your point of view.

  I parked at the other end of the store, while my new client pulled up behind me. He got out of the Jeep, puffing a bit from the exertion, and came over and held out a callused and soiled hand. “George Pembroke. Nice to meet you."

  I returned the shake, trying not to wince, and said, “Karen Dunbar. Or K. C. Whatever you like."

  George nodded, smiling, the only evidence now of his crying being his red-rimmed eyes. “Sorry I came up on you like that, but with my job, well, I can't get away to meet you at your office."

  "So how did you know to find me here?"

  He shrugged massive shoulders. “Everybody comes here eventually, so I waited for you."

  "You did? How long did you wait for me, then?"

  Another shrug. “Since the dump opened. At eight a.m."

  I did a quick calculation and said, “George, you've been here for more than six hours? Waiting to see if I showed up?"

  "That's right."

  I leaned back against the front fender of my SUV. “All right. You said you're looking for your mom?"

  "Uh-huh. I haven't seen her for nearly a month."

  "Have you gone to the police?"

  "Oh, sure I have,” he said. “But they can't help. Unless there's evidence of a crime, they won't do nothin'. And there ain't no evidence of a crime. So I thought I'd come to you."

  Missing persons ... not a type of investigation work I'm used to, but still...

  "Okay,” I said. “Before you tell me any more, I've to let you know about my rates. I charge eighty dollars an hour, there's no guarantee of success, and I give you an oral report every day, and a written report once a week, until you and I decide to part ways."

  George smiled and said, “That's fine. Here, I'll pay you up front."

  I started to say something but George was quicker than me. He reached into one of the pockets of his chino pants, pulled out a soiled lump of bills, and peeled off four. He passed them over to me.

  Eighty dollars. For one hour's work.

  "All right,” I said. “But you realize that's just for an hour, right?"

  "Sure,” he said. “'Cause I'm sure you'll find her in an hour."

  "And why's that?"

  "'Cause I know where she lives,” he said, smiling confidently.

  I almost gave him back his money at that point, but something about the snuffling big man in front of me—like a grizzly bear who had a taste for doughnuts and not raw flesh—fascinated me. “All right,” I said. “I'm sorry I don't understand. You said you're looking for your mom. But if you know where she is, what's the problem?"

  He wiped at a dripping nose with the back of his beefy hand. “It's like this. I know where she lives. Up at Twelve Witchtrot Road. The problem is, well, she's got a new fella. Mom's been on her own since dad dumped her a few years back and moved over to Vermont. And ever since she got this new fella living with her, Hank McCord is his name, I can't see her."

  I held the money out back to him. “I'm sorry, George, I don't think I can help you. She's not missing. You know where she lives. That's something I can't do for you."

  He shook his head. “No, you don't understand. I go to the house and knock on the door, and Hank, he comes and answers. And he says that my mom doesn't want to see me, and he tells me I'd better leave, and if I don't leave, he'll call the cops on me ... and that'll mean trouble, and I can't bear having trouble anymore."

  Something about the phrase stuck with me, and I said, “What do you mean, you can't bear having any more trouble?"

  George shifted his large feet and said, “When I was younger ... I drank lots—lots and lots. A six-pack every day, a case every weekend. Raised a lot of hell and got into lots of trouble. Not proud of it, but that's what happened. And with a record like that, when Hank McCord tells me to beat it, I do just that. I don't want to get into any more trouble; I can't afford it."

  "I see. And you've contacted the police chief and—"

  George sighed. “He said it's just a family affair. That he has plenty of real police work to do. That I should stop bothering him."

  Knowing Chief Bryant Hughes, who's about three weeks away from leaving Purmort for good and taking a nice cushy job with Homeland Security, that sounded just about right. No use in raising questions or problems during these last few weeks.

  "This Hank McCord, what's he like?” I asked.

&nbs
p; George said, “Young guy, about my age. Tall, strong, but slick, you know? Always dresses right. Antique dealer of some sort, which is why I think he took up with mom."

  "Why's that?"

  "Mom's a treasure hunter, that's why. Always collected stuff, stuff she told me she was going to leave me when she passed on.” He gestured to the dump store. “Sometimes she found neat stuff here, and antiquing up and down the valley. She keeps her really important stuff in her safe. Not a big secret, but that's what she's done."

  He wiped at his eyes again. “That's ... that's why I think Hank took up with her. To woo her, get her confidence. So she'd turn all her treasure over to him, and then he'd dump her. I don't want that to happen. I need to talk to mom, to work things out. You know?"

  "Sure,” I said. “I know.” I looked at the wad of bills in my hand, thought about what he was asking, thinking that maybe an hour would work, maybe not, and then again, why should I bother? Most of my work is straight investigative stuff, working for insurance adjusters, getting copies of motor vehicle accident reports or workers’ compensation claims. Not especially exciting, but stuff that paid the light bill and cable bill every month.

  I looked up at George, at his bearded face, and thought of something else. My cat Roscoe. Pathetic, huh? Single female latching onto her male companion. But there was something else there. I thought about how Roscoe had come into my life, wandering into the yard with an infection that would result in a plume of mucus out of his nose every time the scrawny cat sneezed, and how the vet would only examine him if I agreed to adopt him, which I did.

  "All right, George,” I said. “Come over to my car, we'll do a little paperwork. I'll find your mom, tell her that you want to talk to her. Okay?"

  He nodded so quickly and enthusiastically, I thought he might get whiplash. “Sure. That'd be great. Thanks a lot. I mean it. Thanks a lot."

  And as we went to our respective vehicles, I was instantly having second thoughts.

  Roscoe and George.

  I'm a sucker for furry faces.

  * * * *

  Next day I was on Witchtrot Road, in the adjacent woods, looking at number twelve through a spotting scope I had set up on a little ridge of land. The biggest difference in doing P.I. work in the countryside versus the city: In the city, there are plenty of places to hide to do your work. Out here in the countryside, where neighbors keep a view on neighbors, and when everyone keeps an eye on the roads, there's no such thing as a good hiding place. There are just places where you can go for a while to do your job, which is what I was doing. I was fortunate in that it was a nice sunny day, but after about a half hour, I was bored out of my skull.