EQMM, November 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "That back door was bolted from the inside,” Sheriff Lens reminded me.

  "Not when he left, it wasn't. You're forgetting it was Mitch who reached through the broken glass in the door, supposedly to unbolt it. He covered the fact that it was unbolted all along, and provided us with a seemingly impossible murder. He was the only one who could have faked it, and once I realized that the rest of it started falling in place. Another element was the cat. Why did Scott have to lock it away two hours or more before young Todd would arrive? Because his brother Mitch was allergic too, and he was arriving earlier."

  Sheriff Lens took a deep breath. “I'm sorry, Mitch, but I'm going to have to arrest you."

  I saw the anguish in his face, an anguish the sheriff and I both felt too. “Couldn't it have been suicide after all, Sheriff?” I asked. “Will this make it any easier on the family if his motive comes out?"

  "What about the weapon?"

  "We found it under the stove."

  "But I searched—” Then he stopped and peered at the young man, still so close to being a boy. “When did you say you were due back?"

  "I'm supposed to leave right after the funeral on Wednesday."

  Sheriff Lens glanced in my direction. “You're getting a second chance, son,” he told Mitch Grossman. “Make good use of it."

  To the people of Northmont, the death of Scott Grossman became a suicide. But the ways of the gods are strange at times. Two months later, on October 26th, Mitch Grossman was killed in action when one of the first Kamikaze suicide flights hit his escort carrier in the sea off the Philippines.

  (c)2007 by Edward D. Hoch

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  THE STEAMING GUN by Ron Carlson

  Ron Carlson makes his first appearance in EQMM this month, but he is by no means new to short-story writing. An O. Henry Prize winner, his work has appeared in Harper's, Esquire, and The New Yorker. Two of his story collections, At the Jim Bridger and The Hotel Eden, were selected for the New York Times notable books list and noted among the Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year. His mosty recent book is the YA novel The Speed of Light.

  It was midnight and my fabulous partner Phil Garrity and I were out on River Road looking at an upside-down Lexus when the College Hill call came in. The Lexus had skidded on what everybody calls The Dip and busted through the old wooden guardrail and was wrong way up on the grassy bank. The headlights were still on, and the radio was playing pretty hard hip-hop, and so it wasn't until Phil stepped down through the icy splinters that we understood the car was still running. Garrity went around to the open passenger door and looked inside and said to me, “Nobody home."

  "This car thief survived and ran away,” I told him. “Smile.” The flash from my camera lit the whole scene. The undercarriage of the car made a beautiful puzzle.

  "Take another,” he said. He stood up and straightened his tie and patted the corners of his lustrous head. “Cheese,” he said and I took another shot. Garrity is a little proud of his hair.

  I pointed. “He came up here and jogged toward town."

  "What makes you think he didn't freak out and jump in the river?"

  "He's stupid, not suicidal.” It was late October and there was a fringe of ice along the bank, frosting the reeds. The cold snap had surprised everybody. As a cop you want a story to go with the scene, but sometimes you just get the scene. The first thing you do on your first call as a rookie is speculate about what happened, and speculation is your partner evermore. It's the way, even with the jaded guys like me. You can't stop it, so instead you look for footprints, which is what I found there on the shoulder. The perpetrator left quite a scramble of shoe prints in the gravel there. I dropped my old pocket ruler on the ground for scale and took a picture of the prints. Across the street I found some more. He had about a four-foot stride and he ran heavily on his heels in pants with big open pockets because down a few yards, like a shiny penny, I found his cell phone. I put it in my pocket.

  Two police cruisers arrived, and I told the first guy, a sergeant named Whisner, “Call a tow truck and search the area. You'll probably find this guy's wallet. He's an idiot.” See, I was still speculating.

  "Did you know the Lexus can run upside down?” Garrity asked me. His words were all steam in the frigid night. “They should put it in their advertising."

  "Come on, Phil,” I told him. “We got a call; there's a couple bodies waiting for us on College Hill."

  * * * *

  On the way back to town, I asked my fabulous partner, “How fast was he going?"

  "Sixty-five, sixty-eight. He skidded ninety feet. Faster than that and he would have gone swimming for sure."

  "You're good, Phil."

  "Thank you, Benny. It's all part of my CSI approach to the crime scene."

  "So then, did you take DNA from the steering wheel where his teeth hit?"

  "Go back, Benny. Right now.” He was kidding. We always kidded about the forensic craze. You had to joke just to survive it. It was bad at first with all of our friends asking did we do the chemical analysis of this and that. Did we check out the microbes on this and that. Did we match the DNA on this and that. For a while we said, no, we just look for the guy with the gun in his hand and jump on him and take him and all his DNA to jail. We actually had to do that one time in Horatio's Fishhouse. We chased a guy who'd robbed the bank next-door and cornered him in the kitchen. When he pulled his gun from his jacket, my fabulous partner Phil Garrity tackled him hard right there and the gun flew into the lobster pot. When backup arrived, they cuffed the bad guy and asked for the gun. Horatio himself fished it out of the broth with some tongs, and it was perfect: a greasy .38 steaming like a clam in the bright room. Clear evidence: the steaming gun.

  But now the Crime Scene Investigation Unit was no joke. These two college kids come in, Madison Ellis and Kevin Monroe, and they've got all the funding. We're still driving a Ford without decent cupholders, and these two experts have got two offices and a new laboratory, plus a town car with leather seats. Phil Garrity and I try to avoid them every chance we get. They call us the “masters of the obvious,” which frankly, I take as a compliment. Nobody wants to hear about a good fingerprint or a spent shell anymore; it's got to be chemistry or nothing at all. They're not happy until they haul out the microscope.

  * * * *

  College Hill is the student section of the city; all the great homes of yesteryear have been carved up into apartments for the university students. The streets rise up the hill, all named after presidents, and it's the only part of this old town that still gets to me. A thousand years ago, I lived here before I dropped out of State and went to the police academy. Actually, I lived with Patricia Adams, who was also a history major, and who happened to be the love of my life, and who was killed at the intersection of Van Buren and Twelfth the first Saturday of our senior year. Two frat guys full of beer hit her bicycle and that was that. No speculation. That is as much of a story as there would ever be. And, as a crime scene, it wasn't much, but I cannot get her mangled bicycle out of my head.

  We're going up to Cleveland and Fifteenth, and as we turn into the district, I tell Garrity to go around.

  "Come on, Benny, let's get up there. We could be first."

  "Go around. You know to go around."

  My fabulous partner Phil Garrity, who was my roommate at the academy, and who has been driving us around for eleven years, turns on Taft so we can avoid Van Buren and Twelfth. He's always telling me to get over it, and I tell him right back that this is my way of getting over it; we go around. It's all I've got: my history. I don't need to see where that bicycle ended up on the sidewalk again and again. We went to the post-stress seminar last year, and Phil came out saying that I needed closure. He tries. I told him: Every time I get near that intersection my throat closes up and I have trouble breathing. That's all the closure I need.

  We were the first to arrive anyway, which was good news. It was an old Georgian place, with two ruined colum
ns in front and the landlord sitting on the steps in the dark. We could see his breath. We got out of the car and Garrity called to the guy, “You got a gun?” It's not a joke. We always start this way because it was extremely useful on two separate occasions. Never overlook the obvious.

  He was a young guy. All the landlords now are young guys; it was all geezers in my time. These must be their sons. He was in jeans and a well-worn white button-down shirt and an arctic vest, and he looked tired. He held up a key ring and Garrity took it.

  "They're in the carriage house. She's been renting from me since last fall. The mother called me, and when I got home from work, I went back, about two."

  "Where do you bartend?” I asked him.

  "The Twilight,” he said.

  I lead Garrity around the house and there is the little back house, like a cottage in a story.

  "How'd you know he was a bartender?"

  "Time of day,” I said. “Plus, couldn't you smell the cigarettes on him?"

  We didn't need the keys. We went into the cute little place and stood still inside the door for a minute in the dark, listening. Nothing. When it's bodies, we don't hurry.

  It was chilly. Garrity turned on the lamp and we looked at the sitting room—the couch, the rocker, a spray of magazines on the milkbox coffee table. She had a couple of French museum posters on the wall, framed in plastic. “You have a fireplace when you were in college?” Garrity asked me.

  "No time for a fire,” I said. I was in the little alcove that served as a kitchen. There was a saucepan in the sink and two bowls and spoons. The garbage was old lettuce, four copies of the student newspaper The Avalanche, and a jumbo can of oyster stew. I checked the little fridge and it was clean and squared away: milk, eggs, butter, a bag of black grapes, some kind of fancy chocolate candy. “Uh-oh,” I said.

  "What you got?"

  "No beer."

  "That's crazy,” he said. “You ready?"

  "Right. Not much here. Let's take a look before the experts get here."

  The two kids were on the bedroom floor, facedown. They both wore jeans and flannel shirts and the girl was partially on the boy's back. It looked like they'd just laid down, but the fan of papers indicated they'd fallen forward from sitting on the bed. She had a nice silver ring on her business finger with hearts etched around it, and the word ART inked on the back of her left hand and the letters HUR on her right hand.

  "Blood?"

  "No blood, no gun,” I said. “Just papers and pens."

  "What do you make of her hands?"

  "That's his name."

  "What's his name?"

  "Arthur. I'm betting this is Arthur."

  Garrity picked the heavy textbook off the bed. “Chemistry,” he said. He read the opened page, “Understanding the Krebs Cycle."

  "Whatever that is,” I said.

  Now I saw the name JEN on the boy's left hand. There was nothing on his right.

  "How long they been here?” I asked him.

  "I don't know. It's been cold. Three days?"

  "Three days. That's a problem, you sleuth. You've got to nail it down to hours, minutes. The CSI guys will know it to the second. Who died first?"

  "Tell me the cause of death?” Garrity asked.

  "Tell me who died first?"

  "One of them. He did. He's on the bottom."

  "CSI may argue with that. That's the same kind of guess that could get you nowhere."

  "You think she died first and then he died and crawled under her?"

  "It could happen. Forensics will tell us the whole story, I'm sure.” We could see the blue light now pulsing outside the window. “They're here."

  A minute later, we heard voices and the CSI team came in, fresh as a new day.

  "You touch anything?” Madison Ellis said to us.

  "No, ma'am,” Garrity said. “Just this schoolbook. Chemistry."

  We knew what she was going to say next and she said it. “Don't touch anything."

  "You taking over?” I asked her partner, Kevin Monroe, a guy who dressed like he lived at the Gap. He was handsome as an actor, the guy who plays a conflicted doctor on the hospitial show. She was wearing a nifty leather jacket, black, over a gray wool skirt.

  "You guys come from the opera?” Garrity asked. I'd told him not to bait them, but he was a better man than me.

  Madison Ellis had already flipped her blond hair back twice and she was at her BlackBerry pretty furiously. Kevin had the wallets out and was spelling the names to her: Jennifer McKinley and Arthur Johnson. In less than a minute, she had the deceased Arthur Johnson's roommate on the phone. But she is one of the few citizens of the world who can speak so quietly into her cell phone that you can't hear. She did a little turn talking there, and I watched Garrity enjoy the pulse in her calves. She'd obviously done some running in college. When she snapped the phone closed, Kevin said, “Note the self-defacement.” He pointed to the hands and took three quick pictures. “And these are all chemical notes,” he added. He had the smallest camera in the world; it looked like a pocketknife.

  "The roommate says they've been going steady for a year,” Madison said. “Inseparable, evidently."

  "Evidently,” I said.

  "Love nest?” Kevin said. I loved it when they started talking this way. They wanted a story, a sexy story if possible.

  "You're thinking suicide?” Garrity said.

  "Do you see a steaming gun?” Kevin asked. He smirked.

  "I don't see anything,” Garrity said. “I see a couple of confused kids, and then, of course, these bodies here."

  "That's enough of that,” Kevin said. Without a sense of humor he wouldn't last—or he'd become a politician.

  "Seriously, Madison,” I said. “You're thinking a suicide pact?"

  "Look at this,” she said, indicating the bodies.

  "They're probably good kids,” I said. “Studying for the chemistry final."

  "It's always ‘good kids’ with you,” she said. “You need a reality check."

  "When are finals?” Garrity asked.

  I did the math. “Today's Tuesday. Wednesday is reading day and finals start Thursday."

  "A university man,” Madison said to me.

  "I'm a cop,” I said. “But I've got a memory."

  I'd taken in the room. Her books were on the shelf above her desk and they were all sheafed with notes and all the notes were in her handwriting. She was a good student. She had two posters on the wall, one a blown-up photograph of herself and young Arthur standing at the beach, their smiles busting their faces, and one of the periodic table of the elements. Like all things that remind me of how little I know, it had a kind of beauty. Her closet doors were missing, but she'd draped a curtain over the entry and I checked. Nine pairs of sensible shoes, none of them new. The window in the room had Levolor blinds and the view, which was murky through a sheet of plastic over the window, showed the line of garbage cans in the lighted alley. I checked the lamps, both of them working perfectly.

  "Finals are coming,” Kevin started his big theory, “it feels like the end of something. They're depressed..."

  "Everyone's depressed,” Garrity said.

  Kevin went right on, like the great judge on the golden bench of logic. “They're under a lot of pressure and they decide to make their love ideal, perfect, forever, and they figure out a trace poison, one of the forty, and kiss goodbye.” He wanted so badly to be in the papers.

  "Cyanide will do,” Madison said.

  "Without a thought of their parents,” I said. I remembered my girlfriend Patricia Adams's parents and how crushed they were. They blamed me, of course, because she'd moved in. If we hadn't been in love and she hadn't moved in, she wouldn't have been riding on Twelfth and crossed Van Buren and been killed by the drunks.

  "Too much Romeo and Juliet for these kids,” Kevin said. He had his chemistry case open and was swabbing here and there.

  "Everybody's got too much Romeo and Juliet,” Garrity said.

 
"You going to get the DNA?"

  Kevin knew the tone and said, “You guys are through here."

  "Kevin,” I told him. “We never started. Let us know what you get. We'll run some police tape for you; when do you want the ambulance?"

  "Twenty minutes,” Madison said. “Thanks. And Ben, about your partner..."

  "I know,” I said. “Isn't he fabulous?"

  * * * *

  Outside I walked around the little cottage. It was a beautiful brick thing that at one time had held two big Lincolns, at least. They'd made the conversion nicely, matching the brick and putting in the fireplace so they could get a thousand dollars a month from some young scholar.

  Garrity came up. “What are you doing? Taking a leak?"

  In a blur through the window I could see Kevin taking his samples. “Those kids did not kill themselves,” I said, and when I said that I felt that cell phone in my pocket vibrate and I held a hand up so Phil would be quiet.

  I snapped it open and heard a gravelly voice say, “Dude, you okay?"

  I put a knuckle in my teeth and grunted, “Uhh."

  "Eberheart!” the voice said. “You okay?"

  I bit down and mumbled, “Meet me."

  "Where?"

  "Polk's Tavern,” I said. It wasn't a good choice, because tavern has two syllables, but I got it out.

  "Good deal. Eberheart,” the voice said, “are you drunk?” I snapped the phone shut and said to my noble partner, “Let's go downtown."

  We got in the car and Garrity asked, “Shall we pick up a plain car and make the collar?"

  I didn't want to make the collar. It would be sweet to meet the idiot who turned that car upside down by the river, but the two bodies had gotten to me. Something about the dead students was bothering me, and I knew part of it was their parents getting the news, and part of it was something CSI wasn't going to help with. “Go around,” I told Garrity when he turned onto Van Buren.

  "Come on, get over it. We could be drinking coffee in ten minutes,” he said.

  "Go around. There's no hurry.” He turned onto Tenth and started the big circle toward headquarters.