Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 12/01/12

Home > Other > Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 12/01/12 > Page 16
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 12/01/12 Page 16

by Dell Magazines


  "Three days," Benny said.

  "The timing's right," Johnny Lee said. "He shoots Minamoto and then kills himself. We'll run ballistics on the gun."

  "This stinks," Benny said.

  Johnny Lee had been in the motel room with the dead body, and he could vividly remember the smell, but he understood Benny meant it metaphorically.

  "What do I tell Minamoto's daughter?" Benny asked. "We owe her an explanation."

  "Saito left a note," Johnny told him.

  It was in Japanese calligraphy, done with careful brush strokes.

  There was arterial blood spray on the wrinkled rice paper. Benny was cautious not to tear it. "What does it say?" he asked the college professor, spreading it out on his desk.

  "It's haiku," the Japanese scholar told him.

  "Bear with me," Benny said.

  "It's a poem, very formally structured."

  "Can you translate it?"

  "It's not an exact science."

  "Approximately, then," Benny said.

  Snow alights gently

  On the shoulders of a lark

  Grief burns, fire takes wing

  "Meaning?" Benny asked.

  "Exile, perhaps, and rebirth, or renewal."

  "The cops tell you they found this next to a suicide?"

  The professor nodded.

  "An educated guess, then."

  "It might mean he redeemed himself, in death."

  Benny decided he wouldn't show anybody else the poem.

  He took Aurora and Angelina up to Emily Minamoto's farm to pick peaches. As he expected, it was hard work, but satisfying. The girls, of course, complained to him about it.

  Benny had little sympathy.

  Peaches, he explained patiently, are easily bruised.

  Copyright © 2012 by David Edgerley Gates

  Previous Article

  SPECIAL FEATURES

  SPECIAL FEATURES

  2012 EQMM Readers Award Voting Now Open!

  It's that time of year again. Please take a few minutes to vote for your favorite stories of 2012. It's easy. Just pick your top three stories from this past year and list them, in order, on a piece of paper along with the following code: 5H1713B-AB Please provide your full name and return address,...

  VOLUME ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE & ONE HUNDRED FORTY—2012

  ALLYN, DOUG: Wood-Smoke Boys March/April 31 Death of a Drama Queen Sept/Oct 4 ALLYN, JIM: The Deer Woods February 76 BARNARD, ROBERT: Time for a Change Sept/Oct 150 BARON, MIKE: Five Stars July 25 BECK, ZOË: Out There February 97 BLAIN, W....

  FICTION

  PASSPORT TO CRIME

  Next Article

  SPECIAL FEATURES

  2012 EQMM Readers Award Voting Now Open!

  It's that time of year again. Please take a few minutes to vote for your favorite stories of 2012. It's easy. Just pick your top three stories from this past year and list them, in order, on a piece of paper along with the following code: 5H1713B-AB

  Please provide your full name and return address, and be sure to pick stories for first, second, and third places. Ballots without return addresses and/or without choices for all three places will not be counted.

  We encourage you to include any comments you have about this year's issues.

  Send your completed ballot to: The Editors, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Dell Magazines, 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10007. (No e-mail votes accepted!) Ballots must be postmarked no later than 12/5/12. To refresh your memory of the year's stories, please refer to the 2012 index in this issue. If you still can't recall the title of a favorite story, please briefly summarize the plot. Only new stories are eligible; votes for reprints of previously published stories will not be counted. The winners of the 2012 Readers Award will be announced in the May 2013 issue. For early results, please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope with your ballot.

  Next Article

  Previous Article

  PASSPORT TO CRIME

  SPECIAL FEATURES

  VOLUME ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE & ONE HUNDRED FORTY—2012

  ALLYN, DOUG: Wood-Smoke Boys March/April 31

  Death of a Drama Queen Sept/Oct 4

  ALLYN, JIM: The Deer Woods February 76

  BARNARD, ROBERT: Time for a Change Sept/Oct 150

  BARON, MIKE: Five Stars July 25

  BECK, ZOË: Out There February 97

  BLAIN, W. EDWARD: The Charles Dickens Mystery November 2

  BOECKMANN, TORE: The Crime Behind the Fortune August 97

  BOLAND, JOHN C.: Family Place March/April 111

  BONNER, BRYNN: Final Vinyl Sept/Oct 111

  BREAZNELL, GENE: Tunnel Vision June 41

  BREEN, JON L.: The Jury Box May, November

  BRETT, SIMON: The Ritual of Mr. Tarplee June 15

  BROWN, STEWART: Dial Country Code M+1 for Murder December 105

  BRUEN, KEN: Tort June 68

  CAMERON, DANA: One Soul at a Time June 2

  Mischief in Mesopotamia November 55

  CÁRDENAS, ELIÉCER: The Strange Architecture of Destiny Sept/Oct 62

  COOPER, N.J.: Diagnosis Death July 57

  Lost Cause November 80

  CRIDER, BILL: Blog Bytes Jan–Dec

  CUTLER, JUDITH: The Parson and the Heiress March/April 53

  What the Butler Saw July 59

  DAVIS, JIM: Gone Fishing November 14

  DEAN, DAVID: Jenny's Ghost June 25

  Mariel December 19

  DE NOUX, O'NEIL: Misprision of Felony December 34

  DIEHL, BARBARA WESTWOOD: God Bless January 21

  DUBOIS, BRENDAN: His Daughter's Island July 2

  EDWARDS, MARTIN: No Flowers May 102

  ELLIS, KATE: A Nice Neighbourhood May 29

  ELLIS, RALPH: Never Enough Sept/Oct 99

  EQMM Reader's Award (2011) May 75

  EQMM Reader's Award ballot December

  17FAHERTY, TERENCE: After Cana Sept/Oct 138

  FONSECA, RUBEM: Marta January 61

  Beauty November 40

  GATES, DAVID EDGERLEY: Old Man Gloom December 80

  GOLDBERG, LEE: Mr. Monk and the Open House January 27

  Mr. Monk and the Talking Car June 50

  GREENWOOD, THERESE: Wrecked March/April 117

  GROOME, HARRY: The Girl Who Fished With a Worm May 2

  HALLSTEAD, WILLIAM: Golden Contract January 90

  HALTER, PAUL: The Man with the Face of Clay July 35

  HEWSON, DAVID: Dead Men's Socks December 51

  HOCH, EDWARD D.: The Suitcase November 84

  HOOVER, KENNETH MARK: Phaedra February 43

  HOWARD, CLARK: Black Pearls May 84

  The Street Ends at the Cemetary August 2

  HOWE, MELODIE JOHNSON: Losing It August 88

  LANIGAN, SUSAN: Gymnopédie No. 1 Sept/Oct 28

  LEVITSKY, RONALD: Naked Beach March/April 132

  LEWIN, MICHAEL Z.: Last Laugh Sept/Oct 156

  Good Intentions November 89

  LEWIS, EVAN: Skyler Hobbs and the Garden Gnome Bandit Sept/Oct 39

  LINK, WILLIAM: Sally the Bookworm February 54

  Just Another Saturday Night March/April 96

  LOVESEY, PETER: Ghosted March/April 100

  LOVITT, ZANE: Death at Le Shack February 87

  MACKAY, SCOTT: Cruel Coast July 81

  MALZBERG, BARRY N.: Always Her Eyes (with Bill Pronzini) March/April. 186

  MANFREDO, LOU: The Home of the Brave January 45

  A Path to Somewhere Sept/Oct 69

  MARSTON, EDWARD: The Unwritten Law January 35

  MATERA, LIA: Champawat Sept/Oct 159

  MAZUK, HARLEY: Ice Sept/Oct 86

  MCDERMID, VAL: Darkling Sept/Oct 127

  MCEACHERN, GORDON: The History Lesson May 77

  MERCHANT, JUDITH: Annette Writes a Ballade June 33

  MILCHMAN, JENNY: The Closet November 44

  MODRACK, BARBARA ARNO: Acting on a Tip July 46

  MORAN, TERRIE FARLEY: Fontaine House August 76

/>   MOSER, MILENA: In Walenstadt December 96

  MUIR, BRIAN: Floating Ant February 29

  MYERS, AMY: Murder Uncordial August 103

  NADEL, BARBARA: Death in the Time Machine July 15

  Nain Rouge August 33

  OATES, JOYCE CAROL: So Near Any Time Always March/April 4

  Hey Dad August 27

  OLSON, DONALD: Drowned in a Sea of Dreams July 104

  O'NEIL, GRANT: The Malibu Waltz July 68

  PEIRCE, HAYFORD: Le Père Noël on Christmas Island January 73

  PICCIRILLI, TOM: The Void It Often Brings With It November 69

  POWELL, JAMES: The Fellowship of the Peach-Stone Ring January 65

  PRONZINI, BILL: Always Her Eyes (with Barry N. Malzberg) March/April 186

  Gunpowder Alley August 49

  PULLEN, KAREN: Brea's Tale January 97

  ROGERS, CHERYL: Farewell to the Shade February 37

  ROZAN, S.J.: Golden Chance December 2

  SALZER, SUSAN K.: The Saint of Pox Island . March/April 158

  SANTLOFER, JONATHAN: The Muse Sept/Oct 54

  SAVAGE, TOM: Rural Legend March/April 123

  SAYLOR, STEVEN: The Widows of Halicarnassus March/April 164

  O Tempora! O Mores! Olympiad! May 36

  The Return of the Mummy June 75

  SCHAEFER, P.A.: The Beautiful North March/April 149

  SHADFORD, JUDITH L.: Walking Out June 61

  SHANNON, JAMES T.: Shame the Devil July 94

  SILVIS, RANDALL: The Indian March/April 62

  SOLANA, TERESA: Still Life No. 41 March/April 143

  STEINBOCK, STEVE: The Jury Box Jan—March/April, June—Sept/Oct & December

  STODOR, ADAM: Check Number 275 May 56

  STRICKLAND, J.L.: Amazing Grace, Sorta August 65

  TODD, MARILYN: Cover Them With Flowers November 25

  TOLNAY, TOM: The Misplaced Person Sept/Oct 130

  TREMAYNE, PETER: Finnbarr's Bell January 104

  TURNBULL, PETER: The Long Shadow August 39

  Karen Ovenhouse and the Ruin Snooper December 70

  WARREN, JAMES LINCOLN: Shikari February 2

  WARTHMAN, DAN: Sonny Taylor: A Nontraditional Man January 2

  WEINMAN, SARAH: Cog in the Wheel December 46

  WEISFELD, VICTORIA: Premeditation February 61

  YATES, DONALD A.: Immortal Londoners (verse) February 60

  ZELDOVICH, LINA: Marsh Island May 67

  ZELTSERMAN, DAVE: One Angry Julius Katz and Eleven Befuddled Jurors June 96

  Previous Article

  PASSPORT TO CRIME

  PASSPORT TO CRIME

  IN WALENSTADT

  by Milena Moser

  Born in Zurich, Milena Moser left school for an apprenticeship as a bookseller. On completing it, she lived in Paris for a couple of years, then returned to Switzerland where she co-founded a...

  SPECIAL FEATURES

  DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES

  DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES

  PASSPORT TO CRIME

  IN WALENSTADT

  by Milena Moser

  Born in Zurich, Milena Moser left school for an apprenticeship as a bookseller. On completing it, she lived in Paris for a couple of years, then returned to Switzerland where she co-founded a magazine and became a freelance writer who now has sixteen novels, two volumes of short fiction, and many radio plays to her credit. She and her family lived in San Francisco from 1998-2006, where she found the inspiration for this story.

  Translated from the German by Mary Tannert

  The water was ice cold. There were hands in it, hands that closed around her ankles, tightened their grip, pulled downward. Martine had run down the bank and directly into the water, just as she always did when she trained with her swim club. But here she stopped suddenly, the water barely above her knees. She gasped for breath. The hands clung to her calves, squeezing mercilessly. She'd get leg cramps in a minute if this went on.

  Never mind, she told herself sternly. She pulled on her goggles, adjusted her nose clip, raised her arms, and pushed off. Dove under the surface. And came back up again, coughing, breathless. Her feet paddled, wild and uncoordinated, spent one long, panicked moment feeling for solid ground. There was something wrong with the lake. She tore the goggles from her face, gasped again.

  Martine Meier, long-distance swimmer. What a spectacle she was making of herself! Thank goodness nobody was around at this time of day to see her. The lake's beach was deserted in the gray of dawn, the water before her lay leaden and still against the backdrop of mountains so blue they looked like paper cutouts.

  She'd woken up at five. Jet lag. Had simply lain there awhile in the unfamiliarly narrow hotel bed, wide awake, eyes open. In the next bed, Joanna snored gently. Four to a room—that was unfamiliar too. Yesterday evening, Joanna had generously doled out sleeping pills from her apparently plentiful supply of medication. Martine had refused them; after all, she was responsible for the little group. But at five in the morning, wide awake, she'd regretted her caution. Finally, she got up, pulled on her swimsuit in the dark, and made her way to the lake in the first shimmer of dawn, through the empty streets of Walenstadt.

  At home, she had to drive just to get to the water. To the swim club on the bay, where she did her training every morning in ice-cold, mercury-contaminated water. A mile out, a mile back. 3.2 kilometers in just under forty minutes. A Swiss mountain lake shouldn't be any trouble. She settled the goggles on her face again, took a deep breath in. Breathed out.

  There was something wrong with this lake.

  Martine, pull yourself together!

  In San Francisco, the water was a chilly fifty-seven degrees, and she swam every day clad only in a short-sleeved neoprene suit. There were big waves in the bay, seals, soft-drink bottles; there was sewage, and now and then even a shark gone astray. By comparison, a mountain lake was nothing!—even if, she admitted, it was a very deep, very dark lake. She pushed off one more time, dived under the surface, and stretched her arms over her head. Across the lake and back, that's what she'd set herself, but it was clear immediately that she couldn't do it. Not through the middle of that bottomless lake; it would swallow her, she was sure of it. She forced herself to swim a couple of strokes, swam away from a cold, naked fear, away from herself. But she thought she could see shadows through the goggles; hands, hands that reached for her. After a couple of strokes, she turned around. She didn't even swim all the way back; she was still far away when she touched bottom, stood up, and waded out. By the time she got to shore, the sun was coming up. It would be hot today, but Martine was trembling.

  Her group was already at breakfast at the Hotel Churfirsten when she got back. The jet lag had affected all of them, all except for Joanna, who was still snoring peacefully when Martine let herself into their room to change. Joanna lay on her back, her mouth wide open, both arms wrapped around her light-blue cosmetic bag, which contained her collection of pills. Martine got dressed quickly and went down to the breakfast room; it was her job to help the group manage in these foreign surroundings.

  "Over here, honey!" Mr. Zoggan, the tour organizer, waved her over to his table. But Kate, one of the three other women with whom Martine shared her room, rescued her just in time.

  "Martine, can you come over here a minute? I really need your help!" They hid behind the menus, giggling like schoolgirls. Another successful escape.

  Zoggan had hired Martine to accompany a small group of American hobby genealogists looking for their roots in Switzerland. Fourteen Americans with names like Wenger, Iberg, and Schaerer. Genealogy is a popular pastime in the United States. After all, everybody has roots somewhere. It's just that, in a nation largely settled by immigrants, this somewhere is somewhere else. And Mr. Zoggan, himself of Hungarian descent, had seen a market opportunity in that fact. He organized trips through Europe that were supposed to help Americans encounter their roots. He'd guided the first few himself, but then he'd begun to hire natives who could help the grou
p negotiate the usual cultural divides.

  Martine had imagined the task would be easier than it was—a paid flight to Switzerland, she'd thought, a Switzerland that had seemed small enough after fourteen years in America that she'd have time for a quick visit with all her relatives and old friends, from her grandparents in Ticino to friends in Zurich and Basel, all the way to her brother and his family at Lake Geneva. Especially since the group was staying in Walenstadt. After all, in Switzerland all roads lead to Walenstadt. Or at least through it.

  But her charges needed more of her than she'd thought. It started at breakfast: "No eggs? No bacon? Is that all?" they'd asked, staring glumly at the fresh croissants the Swiss called gipfeli, at the homemade jam, the comparatively strong coffee in big jugs, the foamed milk.

  "Isn't there anything normal here for breakfast?" her niece had asked when she'd visited Martine in San Francisco, staring just as glumly at the menu of the Seal Rock Inn, famous all over the region for its breakfast.

  "Normal?"

  "Müsli. Or maybe a gipfeli."

  "There are fried eggs. Sunny side up."

  Kate turned the croissant in her hands. "All these carbohydrates," she sighed. "I really shouldn't. I'm on Atkins."

  "Oh, never mind, they're so small!" Joanna slid into the empty seat next to Martine and reached for a gipfeli. She looked well rested and fresh, almost wound up. "Just eat half of it! What are we doing today?"

 

‹ Prev