Miriam’s eyes were awash. She could not rid herself of the feeling that only in this relationship had her father had real joy and fulfilment. It made her feel that his had been a life misused, only half satisfying. The combination of love and schoolmasterliness in the tone of the letters only added to this feeling.
She wiped her eyes and burrowed for the very last letter.
My dear, still dear, boy,
I cannot tell you the pain I suffered when I read your last and found that you feel it is time to take up a new sort of relationship. Never before have you told me that what we have was not enough for you. But I must not reproach you—you who have given me so much. I must wish you well and let you go. Please remember how dangerous this love has been, particularly for me. Please, please, Leslie: Pack up the letters securely and return them to me. Those letters would be the end of my career, perhaps of my life. . . .”
Miriam found she could read no more. Now it all became clear: why her father had opposed so vigorously her marriage, why he and Leslie (Ernest was the only man who used his full name) had never, in spite of having so much in common, come fully to trust each other. She understood the pain he must have felt, seeing his lover as the lover of his daughter, but felt painfully that her father had not done himself justice in that last letter, while Les had had to take hard decisions for his father-in-law’s sake, and had loyally stuck to them, however painful his silence must have been for him.
She went into the kitchen, into the muddle of cupboards and drawers, and found her own roll of freezer tape. The box must be the basis of the first garden bonfire in the new house. It would represent for her a thorough and complete destruction of the most important relationship in her father’s life. But it was what he would have wanted.
Copyright © 2012 by Robert Barnard
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FICTION
LAST LAUGH
by Michael Z. Lewin
Michael Z. Lewin is a longtime contributor to EQMM and AHMM, and his short stories appear in many other publications as well. We congratulate him on his recent nomination from the International Thriller Writers for best story of 2011 for “Anything to Win” (The Strand). Another bit of news related to his short stories: Family Trio, a collection of three of the “Lunghi family” tales (two of which appeared in EQMM) is now available on Kindle. And if you’re a fan of the Lunghi series, you also won’t want to miss the latest novel, Family Way.
“You havin’ fun? If you’re havin’ fun, say ‘Yeah, Bob!’”
The audience said, “Yeah, Bob,” and the show was under way.
The gray, grizzled comic prowled the small stage. “I like this town. You know why? Because the people are so friendly.” He picked out a young woman whose seat was in the front row. “Soo, pretty lady? Are you gonna be friendly?”
The young woman shrugged.
“Oh, don’t be shy,” Bob said. “In comedy, if you’re sittin’ in the front row, then you’re part of the show. So, tell us, sweetie, what’s your name?”
“Julie.”
“And where you from, Julie?”
“Here, in town.”
“And what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a librarian.”
“Hey hey! I guess librarians sure don’t look the way they used to.”
“Neither do libraries,” Julie said. “Or maybe you’ve never been inside one.” The audience enjoyed this sign of resistance to the comic.
“Well well,” Bob said. “Looks like we’ve got us a live one here.”
“I’ve been in a library.”
All eyes turned to a young man on the opposite side of the stage. He wore a red baseball cap and a red T-shirt and stood as Bob turned to him.
“And just who are you?” Bob asked.
“Wayne Walcot,” the young man said. “And so far, Julie’s been funnier than you have, Bob.”
“Well, let’s see if I can fix that.”
“Before you start on me, would you do me a favor and ask Julie if she’s single? And tell her I’m staying at the Lansdown Hotel, if she’s interested.”
This drew another appreciative response from the crowd, but Bob approached the newcomer like a vulture approaches dead meat.
At about one in the morning, Wayne Walcot was watching TV in his hotel room when there was a knock at the door.
Walcot turned the TV off, and checked his hair and his red T-shirt in a mirror. “Who is it?”
“Police. Open the door, please.”
In the hall he found a tall woman who held up a badge. “I’m Detective Porter,” the woman said. Behind her was a male officer in uniform. “Are you Wayne Walcot?”
“Jeez, can’t you guys even give me twenty-four hours?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I only got out of prison this morning.”
“Oh yes? What were you in for?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“Humor me,” Detective Porter said.
Wayne Walcot rubbed his face tiredly. “There was a ruckus in a bar and some jerk got stabbed and kind of died. The rest of the guys in the bar saved their own skins by saying that I did it.”
“And of course you didn’t.”
“Does it matter now? I’ve done my six years. But before I can turn around, surprise surprise, I’ve got cops in my face.”
“Cops who want to know where you were tonight.”
Walcot sighed. “I was at the Yuk-Yuk Comedy Club.”
“On your first night after being let out of prison?” The police officers looked at each other.
“I needed cheering up.”
“And did anybody see you there?”
“WelI . . . I suppose . . . about two hundred people did. So what’s this about?”
“It’s about your uncle.” Porter read from her notes. “David Walcot.”
“Uncle Dave? He send you here to run me out of town?”
“You don’t get along with your uncle?”
“He didn’t visit me in prison, let’s put it that way.”
“Well, your uncle was found dead in his home about an hour and a half ago.”
“Dead?” Wayne Walcot looked shocked.
“His body was at the bottom of a flight of stairs.”
“He . . . fell?”
“There was a baseball bat by his head. It had blood on it.”
“Are you saying . . . he was . . . murdered?”
“We believe he interrupted a robbery. Didn’t he have a reputation for keeping a lot of cash in his house?”
“I couldn’t tell you—I’ve been away.”
“Well, guess what? We found your name and the name of this hotel on a pad of paper by his telephone. Quite a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“I called him. I was going to see him tomorrow. I . . . was going to ask him for help getting a job.”
“Even though he didn’t like you?”
“I’m not in a position to be choosy, am I? And I tell you, there’s a dozen people who hated the old miser worse than me. Try his son, Ollie. Or his last ex-wife. And everybody knows he’s got kids around the state he’s never acknowledged or supported. And then there’s his so-called business partners.”
“Slow down, slow down,” Detective Porter said. “I can’t write that fast.”
Once the police left the room, Wayne Walcot left it too.
But he didn’t go outside. He went to another room in the hotel where a young man about his own age and size let him in. “Where you been?” Eddie Jones said.
“I just had the cops in my room,” Walcot said. They seem to think I killed my Uncle Dave.”
“He’s dead?”
“They say he interrupted a robbery. But I’m sure he was breathing when I left him. Still, I suppose they know dead when they see it.”
Jones considered this for a moment. “Bummer.”
�
�It doesn’t bother you?”
“He was never a father to me. And my mom will open a bottle of champagne when she hears.”
“Well, make sure it’s the real stuff.” Wayne Walcot passed over a wad of cash.
Jones kissed the roll of banknotes. “Sweet. . . .”
“And you’ve got something for me, I believe.”
Jones handed him a T-shirt and a baseball cap, both red. “Wouldn’t want too many of these knocking around,” Walcot said. “How was it at the club?”
“Just the way you said it would be. The so-called funny guy started in on a librarian. A bit of a babe, as a matter of fact.”
“And then?”
“I stood up, told him he wasn’t funny. He turned on me right away, used your name over and over. It’s cool, Wayne. Your alibi’s cast-iron.”
“Now, get out of here, Eddie.”
“On my way. I’ll be gone by the morning.”
“Why wait till then?”
“First, I got me a date. Cute little librarian by the name of Julie.”
Copyright © 2012 by Michael Z. Lewin
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BLACK MASK
FICTION
CHAMPAWAT
by Lia Matera
Author of a dozen contemporary crime novels published to rave reviews and the winner of a Best Short Story Shamus Award, Lia Matera has now shown that her light shines equally bright in the realm of historical crime fiction. This new story, a sequel to last year’s “The Children,” follows a young woman perilously threading her way through the politics of the post-World War I era. Readers who missed “The Children” can read it this month on our website. It is also now available for e-readers.
1.
Ella jerked awake. Her forehead, pressed against the train window, was cold with sweat. For two days, she’d been having the same nightmare. She was lying on the snow-dusted sidewalk, looking up at the Kingstons’ windows. She kept trying to shout to them, to defy them with her survival. They were sure she’d finish dying before the wagon came. Why sit listening for the clatter of horseshoes? Even on their street of fine row houses, it might be dawn before the sheet-wrapped bodies were collected. The wagons filled faster every night, more and more of them rattling out of Washington to mass graves in Virginia. There were no coffins left, and no plots in the cemeteries. Funerals, like all public gatherings, were banned by order of the mayor. They’d furled Ella into bed linens from the mending pile, hadn’t they? She was only a servant, after all.
For six hundred miles, Ella tried to stop reliving that night. She tried to focus on the scenery—forest and flatland glittering under frost, Pittsburgh, Akron, Cleveland spiked with girders of new buildings. But on every platform of every train station, some paperboy, cotton mask over his nose and mouth, waved the latest edition. Two hundred newly dead in one city, a thousand in the next, then four thousand, five thousand. The Philadelphia Inquirer screamed 50,000 SICK OF SPANISH FLU, 12,000 PERISH.
Now the train was pulling into Chicago, where Ella would transfer to another terminal. People around her were getting up and gathering their things. But she had only what she wore, a traveling suit and coat from Mrs. Kingston’s tallboy, and the contents of her pockets. So she stayed in her seat, watching the station’s bricks and arches come into view.
She noticed three men standing on the frozen mud beside the tracks. They were a few steps from a platform that eventually disappeared into the terminal tunnel. They were well dressed and hatless, puffs of breath visible as they talked. When her window passed closer to them, she felt a shiver of paranoia. They stood with chests out and heads high, every gesture self-pleased and full of swagger. In her experience, when men looked like they owned the whole world, they had badges and guns to justify it. Were these lawmen? She twisted in her seat, looking for—and seeing, she thought—the bulge of shoulder holsters under their jackets. Was railroad security preparing to come aboard? They’d been rousting draft dodgers and Reds since the war began. And Ella had no papers. The Kingstons had burned her things in case sickness clung to them.
She’d gone to them two years ago with little enough—a few dresses and books, her precious letters from Nicky. But she’d left with nothing. Nothing of her own but guilt: She’d brought home the flu that killed them all. Muriel Kingston, only six years old. Eight-year-old John. Baby Annie. The cook, the maid—kind women who risked their health to nurse her after she survived that night outside.
Her hand slid into the pocket of her—that is, Mrs. Kingston’s—suit jacket. She’d needed money to get back home, to rent a small apartment there and recover in body if not in spirit. He fingers closed over the cold facets of diamonds and rubies, the smooth gold of their settings. It wasn’t as if Mrs. Kingston would ever wear her jewelry again.
That wouldn’t matter to the police. If Ella couldn’t show identification, they’d search her. Every day headlines screamed that Bolsheviks from Russia were here to foment revolution. Not long ago, a girl Ella’s age—just nineteen—was pulled from a Chicago train, her carpetbag filled with dynamite. Aliens under suspicion were put straight onto boats “home” even if, like Ella, they’d arrived as babes in arms. And if she gave a false (not foreign-sounding) surname, her pocketful of rings and brooches might mean years at hard labor. Who’d believe they rightfully belonged to a young woman without protectors or even luggage?
She grabbed her coat from the seat beside her and hurried toward the back. She kept her eyes on the windows, on the three men at platform’s end. The train was moving at a crawl now. She was able to keep pace, keep watching, by pushing through one compartment after another.
The train came to a full stop as she reached the last passenger car. Dodging the elbows of people straightening their hats and cotton masks, she took a window seat. She angled for a better look at the men outside. There was a glint of nickel on the lapel of the tallest. He was ginger-haired and broad-shouldered. When he turned to point to the back of the train, she saw he wore a large six-pointed star. A U.S. Marshal.
Ella felt as if the flu, having noticed her edging toward health, had suddenly yanked her back. Her face went hot, her stomach jumped, it was a struggle to breathe. The marshal waved toward the front of the train. The other men nodded, one climbing to the platform while the other started over muddy sleet to the mail cars.
Seeing the aisle was clear now, she hurried to a tiny bathroom. She closed the door and leaned against it. Whatever or whomever the marshals were looking for, if they searched her, she was ruined. Hands shaking, she spread toilet tissue in the small sink and emptied her pocket into it. She broke one hairpin and twisted another prying open gold prongs. She released two large diamonds and an emerald from their settings. Other pieces were smaller and more common—teardrop ruby earrings, a fire opal stick-pin, pearl studs. She pulled a thread in the hem of her (or rather, Mrs. Kingston’s) blouse and worked the gems and jewelry into it. Her hands shook as she pulled the tissue around the larger more distinctive settings. Then, ignoring a sign asking people not to flush while in the station, she sent the small bundle through the Hopper toilet’s opening to the tracks. When her foot came off the lever, she heard footsteps stop at the other side of the door.
She froze, feeling hunted. She remembered stories Nicky used to love. When he was in his early teens and she was a little girl, he spent hours telling her about tigers. Newspapers then were full of articles about man-eaters, how they stalked villagers by following from a distance of ten or twenty feet, blending invisibly into the jungle. Their huge feet, Nicky said, were as silent as clouds across the sky.
When she opened the door, she found herself face-to-face with the marshal who’d gestured his men to go forward and back. His ginger hair was exactly the shade of tiger fur. He blocked the aisle between her and the seat where (she realized) she’d left her coat.
She drew herself to her full height, such as it was, striving for the look of chill
y indignation Mrs. Kingston used to wear in public. But it was a challenge even to appear calm. U.S. Marshals were the enforcement arm of the Justice Department, the anti-sedition police who rounded up aliens like Ella, draft dodgers like Nicky, and anarchists like their friends.
This one wasn’t wearing his star anymore. And there was no bulge, nor anything in the way he held his arm, to hint at a holstered gun. Did he hand it off to his deputies before boarding? To pretend he was a passenger?
“Sorry to disturb you,” he said. “I hope you’re well? There’ve been quite a few cases of the flu between Washington and Chicago.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No, just . . . a good Samaritan, if you need one, miss. Are you getting off here, waiting for a porter to help with your luggage?”
“No.” She realized her tickets—nearly ninety dollars’ worth—were in her coat. Had he seen them there, had he looked through her pockets? She’d have to be careful not to lie (but not to name a town either) if he asked her destination.
“If you’re catching the transfer train to Grand Central or North Western, it’s been delayed. A porter just told me. They’ve left the dining car open for anyone who wants to wait here.”
“I see.” Mrs. Kingston’s tone would have ordered him to step aside, but Ella couldn’t duplicate it. She wasn’t in the habit of being obeyed.
The man was giving her an appraising look instead of letting her pass. It was bolder than the looks men gave Mrs. K. Was it so apparent, even in clothes taken from a rich woman’s tallboy, that Ella was rabble?
“Say, though, I know you, don’t I?” The marshal smiled, showing good teeth and a single dimple. “Did you board in Washington?”
She thought again of the tickets in her coat pocket. “You too?” If he said yes, perhaps she’d see a tic or squint and know it when he lied again.
“Actually, I think I saw you walking past a friend’s house there.” He gave her another head-to-toe look. “Or rather, the little girl who lives there saw the children who were with you. I don’t remember their names, but I heard about them in some detail—prowess at jump rope, if they’d tried ice cream inside of cones yet. That sort of thing. My friend’s daughter is at the age where she thinks whatever interests her must interest everyone.”
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 09/01/12 Page 21
