Time seemed to slow. As Bobby hung in the air, two shots rang out. Then, instead of fists, dead weight slammed into me. My chair started to tip, but Davy and Nunes were on their feet, grabbing us, trying to hold Bobby off of me.
Cringing, I rolled to the side and fell between two folding chairs. The floor came up with bone-jarring force.
I found myself staring into Bobby's face. Shock, hate, and pain filled it. And disbelief.
Everyone in the room began to shout and run. Missy screamed.
I tilted my head back. The shooter—I focused on the last row of seats.
It wasn't Bobby's boyfriend, but Dawson. He lowered his gun, then sat heavily in a folding chair. He didn't look at any of us.
"Dawson shot him,” Bobby screamed out so everyone could hear. “Dawson shot my stepfather! Dawson shot him!"
Davy and Nunes wrestled Bobby up and into my chair. He clutched at his left shoulder. Blood poured between his fingers, dripping all over. Davy applied pressure to the wound. Nunes headed for her partner.
"It was Dawson!” Bobby was still screaming when my head drooped to the floor. Everything went black.
* * * *
Some time later, I woke in a hospital room. I tried to move, but couldn't. My left arm was in a cast. I must have broken it when I fell.
"Hey!” Davy leaped to his feet and hurried to my side. “How you doing?"
"What happened?” I demanded.
"Two fractures, forearm and collarbone."
Great. I'd be laid up for months.
"What about Bobby?” I asked.
"Dawson shot him."
"Yeah, I saw. Is he—?"
"Alive, yeah. He was lucky. He took one bullet in the shoulder, and the other grazed his neck. He couldn't talk fast enough."
I struggled to sit up. Davy leaned over, pressed the button on my bed's remote control, and raised the back for me.
"But what happened?” I said. “Spill it!"
"I hardly know where to start.” He cleared his throat. “Bobby's a computer hacker. The kid's really smart, and he wrote a virus that infected computers worldwide. Every night, he uses his private army of zombie-machines to spew out millions of e-mail ads for porno sites and online casinos. He gets a referral fee for every sucker they hook. Over the years, it's added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars."
So that was where he got his money. I thought of the tech magazines I'd seen in his bedroom, then the glow of that television from the other room in the barn. Only it hadn't been a television. It must have been a computer monitor—or many computer monitors.
"And Dawson?” I asked. “Did the kid buy him off too?"
"Yeah. Paid him a hundred thousand dollars in cash to lay off. It seems Dawson was already being looked at for corruption. Want to know something funny? Dawson wanted to kill Mitch from the beginning, but Bobby refused. The kid only gave in when Mitch sold Bailey's Final Call to me."
"Bobby loved that horse.” I had seen it in his eyes.
"Apparently the kid thought the deal would fall apart after Mitch died. Never mind that the contracts had all been signed."
"Then he wasn't trying to kill Bailey?"
"Hell no. He accidentally gave the horse too much tranquilizer. The overdose turned up in the second blood test—Dr. Rothman called me yesterday afternoon and let me know. The plan was to knock Bailey out, then lure Mitch and the other farmhand, Carl, over to see him. Carl would have been Bobby's alibi. But since we were there, Bobby used us instead."
I nodded. “And while the farm was crawling with police, Daws walked out of the barn and joined the investigation."
"Exactly, just like you said."
Only I had been joking, and it hadn't been Nunes who shot Mitch.
"Why did Daws shoot Bobby?"
"Dawson was in the back of the room. He picked up on what you were doing and thought Bobby might confess to save his mother."
"But why did he shout a warning to me? There wasn't a knife!"
"If Bobby had a knife, or Dawson thought Bobby had a knife, that would make it a justified shooting. Defending the innocent—don't smirk, that's you—and all that."
"Only Dawson didn't kill him."
"Yeah. His aim was slightly off."
It made sense, in a twisted sort of way.
I asked, “So what now?"
"Well, since you're going to be laid up for a while, I thought you could stay with Cree and me till you're recovered. We have that guest house by the pool..."
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really.” He grinned. “But I can promise you a young and attentive full-time nurse, three healthy meals a day, and all the Diet Dr Pepper you can drink!"
"Feh,” I said. It was going to be a long, long summer.
Copyright (c) 2008 John Gregory Betancourt
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Department: THE LINEUP
John Gregory Betancourt is the publisher of Wildside Press, based in Rockland, Maryland. His last story for AHMM, “Pit on the Road to Hell,” appeared in the July/August 2006 issue.
Screenwriter Terry Black's previous story for AHMM, “The Gun,” appeared in the September 2004 issue.
A physician in Dayton, Ohio, John H. Dirckx's most recent story in our pages, “Numskulduggery” (January/February 2008), also featured Police Detective Cyrus Auburn.
Joan Druett's most recent Wiki Coffin novel, Deadly Shoals, was published last year by St. Martin's Minotaur. She also published a nonfiction book last year, Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World (Algonquin Books).
Brendan DuBois won the 2007 Barry Award for Best Mystery Short Story for “The Right Call” (EQMM, September/October 2006). His most recent novels are the thrillers Final Winter (Five Star) and Twilight (St. Martin's Minotaur).
Booked & Printed columnist Robert C. Hahn reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and New York Post, and other publications. He is the former mystery columnist for the Cincinnati Post.
Martin Limon's novel The Wandering Ghost, the fifth in his series featuring George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, was published by Soho Crime in 2007. The fourth, The Door to Bitterness, is now in paperback.
Elaine Menge's last story for AHMM was “Best of Breed” in the January/February 2008 issue. A native of New Orleans, Ms. Menge now lives in Texas.
Amy Myers's novel Tom Wasp and the Murdered Stunner was published last fall by Five Star. Her short stories have been collected in Murder, ‘Orrible Murder, published by Crippen & Landru in 2006. This is her first appearance in AHMM.
Jas. R. Petrin's AHMM story “Car Trouble” (November 2007) will be included in The Best American Mystery Stories 2008, to be published this fall by Houghton Mifflin. His most recent story for AHMM was “Gang of Three” in the May 2008 issue.
Ben Rehder's first Blanco County, Texas novel, Buck Fever (St. Martin's Minotaur), was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel. His most recent, Holy Moly, has just been published by St. Martin's.
J. Rentilly is a Los Angeles-based journalist who covers film, music, and literature for a variety of national and international publications.
"Pandora's Dream” is the sixth story in Gilbert Stack's series featuring the itinerant bare-knuckle boxer Corey Callaghan, his trainer Patrick O'Sullivan, and the lady gambler Pandora Parson. The most recent was “Pandora's Ghost Town” in the January/February 2008 issue.
Marianne Wilski Strong is best known to AHMM readers for her stories set in ancient Greece and featuring the Sophist Kleides. “A Private Battle” is set in the Wilkes-Barre area of Pennsylvania where she grew up.
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Department: COMING IN SEPTEMBER 2008
THE BIRTHDAY WATCH by G. Miki Hayden
BAJA by Edward D. Hoch
DAVEY'S DAUGHTER by Russel D. McLean
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Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (ISSN:0002-5224), Vol. 53, Nos. 7 and 8, July-August 2008. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. Annual subscription $55.90 in the U.S.A. and possessions, $65.90 elsewhere, payable in advance in U.S. funds (GST included in Canada). Subscription orders and correspondence regarding subscriptions should be sent to 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Or, to subscribe, call 1-800-220-7443. Editorial Offices: 475 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. Executive Offices: 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT and additional mailing offices. Canadian postage paid at Montreal, Quebec, Canada Post International Publications Mail, Product Sales Agreement No. 40012460. (c) 2008 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. The stories in this magazine are all fictitious, and any resemblance between the characters in them and actual persons is completely coincidental. Reproduction or use, in any manner, of editorial or pictorial content without express written permission is prohibited. All stories in this magazine are fiction. No actual persons are designated by name or character. Submissions must be accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts or artwork. POSTMASTER: Send changes to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to: Quebecor St. Jean, 800 Blvd.
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