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CONTENTS
Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: DOUBLE WHAMMY by Linda Landrigan
Department: THE LINEUP
Fiction: BLACK HOLE DEVOTION by K. J. Egan
Department: THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by Willie Rose
Fiction: KIDNAPPED by Joan Druett
Fiction: RING TOSS: A JOHN CEEPAK MYSTERY by Chris Grabenstein
Fiction: MADAME SELINA by Janice Law
Fiction: HARD AS A ROCK by Marianne Wilski Strong
Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn
Fiction: HAMMER AND DISH by Robert Lopresti
Department: SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER
Fiction: POINTS by David Braly
Mystery Classic: SLEEPING DOG: SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY WALTER SATTERTHWAIT by Ross Macdonald
Department: COMING IN JULY/AUGUST 2010
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Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: DOUBLE WHAMMY by Linda Landrigan
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Just as we were going to press, we received word that Dan Warthman has won the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for Best First Short Story by an American author; his winning story, “A Dreadful Day,” appeared in our January/February 2009 issue. What's more, Jim Fusilli's story “Digby, Attorney at Law,” from our May 2009 issue, has been named one of the finalists for the Edgar Award for Best Short Story. Both awards are administrered by the Mystery Writers of America and will be presented at their annual banquet in April. Congratulations to both Dan and Jim!
It was an honor to publisher these stories, and it's a huge thrill to see them recognized in this way.
Each month we strive to bring you the very best in crime fiction, and we think we have a winning issure right here. It's a privilege to welcome Chris Grabenstein to these pages; his story “Ring Toss” features his popular series characters, Jersey Shore police officers John Ceepak and Danny Boyle. We also have a new Mystery Classic this month: Ross Macdonald's “Sleeping Dog,” selected and introduced by Walter Satterthwait.—LINDA LANDRIGA, EDITOR
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: THE LINEUP
David Braly is the author of Crooked River Country: Wranglers, Rogues, and Barons (Washington State University Press), a history of North Central Oregon.
Joan Druett is a maritime historian. She has written four Wiki Coffin novels, including Deadly Shoals (St. Martin's Minotaur).
K. J. Egan's fifth novel, Where It Lies (St. Martin's Minotaur), was published in May 2009. He has worked in the New York State court system for twenty years.
Chris Grabenstein is the author of Mind Scrambler (St. Martin's Minotaur). Booked & Printed columnist Robert C. Hahn reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and New York Post.
Janice Law is the author of nine novels, including The Lost Diaries of Iris Weed (Forge).
Robert Lopresti is the author of Such a Killing Crime (Kearney Street Books).
Walter Satterthwait is the author of Perfection (St. Martin's Minotaur). He lives in Florida.
Marianne Wilski Strong's story “Death in Syracusa” was published in the October 2009 issue. She spent her childhood in northeastern Pennsylvania.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Fiction: BLACK HOLE DEVOTION by K. J. Egan
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Jorge Mascarenhas
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Bernie slipped the envelope into his sports jacket pocket before tossing his raincoat onto the heap on the bed. The streets already had darkened when he arrived, but up here where his brother Declan lived, light still filtered in from the sky over Jersey. Party sounds surged down the hallway: voices, laughter, the clink of crystal and silverware, the tinny music of an old Mickey Mouse Christmas album, a boyhood memory that his brother had found on the Internet and burned onto a CD. Declan, the sometime sentimentalist.
Bernie moved into the light and, unable to help himself, took out the envelope and the sheet of paper folded inside. “Greetings,” it started, a cruel irony at this season of the year. He read it over for probably the twentieth time since the knock came to the door of his bungalow that morning and a man from the D.A.'s office slapped the envelope into his hand. “Slapping a subpoena” on someone was a cliche; now Bernie knew it was a cliche because it was true.
"Uncle Bernie."
Bernie quickly folded the subpoena and saw his nephew Timmy staring up at him. Timmy was only eleven, but already studious behind round wire-rimmed glasses.
"I want to show you something,” he said.
Timmy led his uncle down the hallway to another bedroom and opened a closet stacked floor to ceiling with wrapped presents.
"It's okay,” Timmy said in answer to Bernie's stuttered protests. “I haven't told Teddy."
Bernie helped his nephew drag down the boxes and set them on the bed. A telescope appeared, already assembled and festooned with a red bow.
"I can't wait to take it on the roof, Uncle Bernie. I'll see the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, maybe even a black hole."
"Black holes are invisible,” said Bernie. As an uncle, he felt a duty to steer his nephew between boyish enthusiasm and facts that were just plain wrong.
"How do scientists find them?” said Timmy.
"They watch visible objects. A black hole is so strong it affects how nearby stars and galaxies behave.” Bernie waited a beat to make sure his nephew understood. “Come on, let's put these presents back. We don't want your little brother to walk in."
Bernie drifted through the party. He knew most of the guests and recognized many others: judges, lawyers, a few Supreme Court clerks like himself. He had attended his brother's annual Christmas bash many times and never thought twice about the mix of judges and the lawyers who appeared before them. Maybe it was his mood, but this year he saw the coziness of bench and bar as a breach of common sense, if not ethics.
The apartment was huge, Declan in his foresight purchasing the adjoining unit at a distressed price and breaking down the wall between them. More than an hour passed before Bernie cornered his brother at the wet bar. They exchanged their official holiday greetings—a long handshake punctuated by thumping backslaps. Bernie would not have mentioned the subpoena at all, but he was three wines deep, and as if on cue, the bartender took a bathroom break.
"Let me see it,” said Declan.
Other than the same surname and certain similar facial structures when viewed at precise angles, they were unlikely brothers. Declan was a shorter, stockier, more ballsy variation on Bernie's tall, willowy stature and priestly demeanor.
"Do you know what it's about?” asked Declan.
"Not a clue,” said Bernie.
"Then don't worry.” Declan folded the subpoena back into the envelope. “Some ambitious A.D.A. probably wants to make a name for himself."
* * * *
It was more than the subpoena that contributed to Bernie's wintry mood on the bus ride back to City Island. These rare visions of Declan's lifestyle held a mirror up to his own, and Bernie never much liked what he saw. He and his brother, two years younger, had started together as court officers. Declan went to law school at night, quit the job when he passed the bar t
o become a judge's law clerk, and worked the political levers of the New York City Democratic Party until he became a judge himself. Bernie took a clerk's exam, waited his turn to come off the civil service list, and became a clerk in Motion Part. Declan married a book editor; Bernie stayed single. Declan had two sons, thereby giving Bernie two nephews. But the fact was that Declan's life always had been different. Even as a court officer, he always seemed to live beyond himself while Bernie always struggled. Finally, after years of observation, Bernie had concluded that Declan's life wasn't beyond anything except his own tired imagination.
The bus dropped Bernie off on the boulevard, and he started up the side street to the little bungalow on the back end of the island. It was much colder here than in Manhattan, and the salty air that the wind dragged off the water tasted harsh. Inside, he draped his raincoat over a kitchen chair and took a creased, yellowed paper out of his wallet. Surely he couldn't be the only one to be subpoenaed; surely his fear deserved company. He went down the list, calling the Duffer, Bobby Mac, Murph, Cookie Frank. No one was home. Or maybe no one wanted to answer.
Bernie put his raincoat back on and went down the block and around the corner to Artie's. Foxx sat at the bar, staring defiantly at his own reflection in the mirror while one of the restaurant waitresses fawned on his shoulder and whispered in his ear. He idly ran a hand down her back and over her butt, ending with a firm squeeze. “Later,” Bernie heard him say.
Bernie inserted himself into the space the waitress vacated. Foxx drained the last of his drink and snapped his fingernail against the rim of the glass. The crisp tinkling sound brought the bartender immediately.
"And one for my friend,” said Foxx.
Despite the silver hair and roughened features, Foxx was ten years Bernie's junior. The two had shared Bernie's last year in uniform, and Bernie had taken the young court officer under his wing, showing him the courthouse ropes and imparting the inside dope on the judges.
"What brings you out at this late hour?” said Foxx. He had a stare that could peel paint off wood.
Bernie showed him the subpoena. Foxx handed it right back.
"Anyone who's connected with Motion Part got one,” he said, then ticked off names. Everyone Bernie tried to call, and then some.
"You know what it's about?” said Bernie.
The bartender set the two drinks in front of them. Foxx waited for him to leave before nodding his head.
* * * *
Motion Part was a huge operation in New York County Supreme Court. Each day, junior clerks assembled the motion papers into color-coded file jackets, then arranged the jackets in piles on tables below the ornately carved bench in the stately Motion Part courtroom. Senior clerks, like Bernie, called the daily calendar, running down each case one by one. The lawyers, who jammed the courtroom like cattle on market day, answered for their cases. They could submit the motion for decision on the papers, withdraw the motion as no longer necessary, or argue the motion before the assigned judge. The judge usually appeared in the courtroom only to hear the argued motions, which were reserved for the very end of the calendar call. On any day, there could be one hundred submitted motions piled on the tables. It was an impossible task for a judge and law clerk to read and write decisions on so many motions, so approximately half went to a law pool, where staff attorneys drafted decisions for the judge to sign. Jack Duberstein, the law pool deputy, had the daily job of dividing the motions between the judge and the law pool.
"Couple of weeks ago,” said Foxx, “Internet vice caught a lawyer in a kiddie porn sting. The detectives squeezed him, and he gave up Jack."
They were sitting side by side, looking not at each other but at their own reflections in the mirror. The dinner crowd was mostly gone. A large group had come in and loudly ringed the far end of the bar.
"No way,” said Bernie. Jack Duberstein was a courthouse institution, a gray eminence who could cite cases from the darkest, dustiest corners of the law. He had a gentle manner, a wry sense of humor, and an equanimity real judges often claimed but never quite achieved.
"Not porn,” said Foxx. “Worse. He accused Jack of selling decisions."
Bernie slumped on his stool. “You're kidding."
"I'm not. It was a well-known fact among a certain class of lawyer. If you wanted your motion to come out right, you paid Jack and he took care of the rest. The big question is how. The D.A.'s Office thinks other people are involved, but they don't know who. That's why all the subpoenas. Jack's put him in the ER with chest pains."
Bernie gripped the pad that ran along the front edge of the bar. His insides felt shaky. It wasn't just his natural fear of authority or the risk of answering trick questions from an ambitious A.D.A. It was the simple fact that for the last several years he would call Jack Duberstein on the courtroom phone to tell him the arguments were over and that it was time to come and “work your magic.” That was the exact phrase he used: “work your magic.” And it was true. Jack didn't simply divide the motions by the numbers. He had an uncanny ability to apprehend the complexity of a motion by weighing the papers in his hand, skimming the first page, and riffling the rest with his thumb. “This should go to the pool,” he might say of a particularly complex motion, “and this to the judge.” No one who wasn't intimately connected with motions and the Motion Part would understand. Worse, in the secret atmosphere of a grand jury, Bernie worried that “work your magic” could sound like a code.
* * * *
Christmas break at the courthouse technically was only the four workdays that fell between Christmas and New Year's. But with the two holidays themselves and one weekend thrown in, it lasted eight. For Bernie, those eight days felt like eight decades. Usually, he broke up the time by visiting friends, taking his nephews to the Holiday Train exhibit at the Botanical Garden, and reading the book or two that always seemed to have spent months untouched on his nightstand. This year, he lay in bed till noon, then shuffled around the bungalow in bathrobe and slippers, stopping only to gaze out the porch windows at the gray waters of the Long Island Sound. The winter wind raised a chop, and the sight chilled Bernie's already dismal sense of despair.
But Saturday morning, as usual, he dragged himself out of bed and dressed in his good suit, the one that never saw the inside of the courthouse. He stood on the frigid boulevard and waited for the bus, which took more than an hour to go the fifteen miles to White Plains. The hotel, once a jewel, was now an assisted-living facility. An elderly man doddered down the front steps, carefully placing his huge sneakers on the dry spots between the odd patches of ice. A blast of heated air warmed Bernie as he passed through the automatic doors. In the lobby, three women bundled in sweaters sat around a card table. Bernie waved at the young South Asian woman behind the reception desk. On the elevator, he used his special key to activate the fifth floor button.
His mother was sitting in the small dining hall with an aide who was helping her stir yellow batter in a blue mixing bowl. The aide stood as soon as Bernie appeared, bowing in deference as she swept the bowl off the table. Bernie sat.
"Oh hi,” his mother said. “You're working again today."
"I don't work here, Ma. I'm Bernie. I'm here to visit you."
Her smile immediately brightened. She raised a hand and scratched a yellow nail where her pale, almost translucent skin stretched around her jaw.
"Nice to see you. You look just like someone who works here.” She had lost her ability to recognize Bernie, but not her tricks for explaining away her confusion.
Bernie cycled through his usual topics of conversation: his job at the courthouse, his bungalow on City Island, the day of the month, the time of the year, Timmy and Teddy. He never mentioned Declan anymore, and why the hell should he? Bernie had installed his mother here seven years ago, right after she almost set fire to her apartment. Declan hadn't once visited, didn't know exactly where she was, didn't realize that it was a private pay dementia ward, not some nursing home paid by Medicaid. Yet Bernie, the
good son, the loyal son, had spoken dutifully of his brother. But as his mother spiraled deeper into herself, keeping Declan planted in her diminishing consciousness became less of a priority.
"And how old are they now?” his mother said.
"Eleven and eight,” said Bernie.
"Nice. Two boys. Your father and I had two boys. You and that other one. Danny, is it?"
Bernie said nothing.
"How is your lovely wife?"
"She's fine, Ma,” he said. “She's fine."
In the old days, when his mother first came here, her moods could turn on a dime. One moment she would say she liked the place, the next she would carp about going home. Bernie would try to change the subject, but when his mother kept turning back to the same conversational loops he would extricate himself and leave. The mood swings were different now, full of self-reproach.
"I didn't pray enough,” his mother said, suddenly tearful. “I'm here because I didn't pray enough."
Bernie took her hand in his.
"You prayed enough, Ma. You prayed more than enough."
Later, the director found Bernie waiting for the elevator and mentioned the small matter of the arrearage. It was only one month, but quite unlike Bernie, whose payments always arrived early.
"You'll get it,” said Bernie. “I need to sort some things out."
On the elevator, he slumped in the corner and sighed. What if the grand jury found something? What if he were indicted, arrested? Who would keep her here? Who would visit? He couldn't rely on Declan.
* * * *
January 2 arrived, and court reopened. The grand jury was set to convene on January 9, and Bernie dreaded the idea of working a full week with the subpoena hanging over his head. Still, he dragged himself out of bed and headed downtown.
He got off the bus on Broadway and, as he walked toward Foley Square, saw a large crowd gathered at the foot of the courthouse steps. A film shoot, he thought, or a protest. But as he got closer he saw the gurney bumping into the bay of an EMS truck. Closer still, he heard the name Jack Duberstein on everyone's lips. He stopped and asked a court officer what happened.
AHMM, June 2010 Page 1
