The Richard Deming Mystery Megapack

by Richard Deming

About an hour before dusk Faraday spotted the sort of place he was looking for. By now they had left Mississippi and the banks on both sides of the river were in Louisiana. Up ahead, close to the east bank, was a low, reed-covered island. The reeds grew about waist high and, as there were no trees on the island, even from a distance it could be seen that it was uninhabited.

  It seemed to be about a mile long and no more than fifty yards wide. The channel between it and the east bank was only about seventy-five feet wide. The river bank was also covered with waist-high reeds and there were no cottages along the bank.

  The place was ideal for what Faraday had in mind. He was sure that, so far from the main channel, there would be no current the other side of the island. And the area was isolated enough to satisfy their captors as a safe place to moor overnight.

  “It’ll be dark in another hour,” he said to the bulky man. “We need calm water to moor overnight, and I doubt that we’ll find another place as suitable as the channel behind that island ahead. Want to pull in there?”

  The man who called himself Martin Smith scanned the island and the shoreline beyond it, and was obviously pleased to see no buildings of any sort.

  “You are the navigator,” he said. “Are you sure the water is deep enough there?”

  “We only draw three feet. I’ll need my wife to give me soundings.”

  “Soundings?”

  Faraday was surprised at the man’s abysmal ignorance of everything about river navigation.

  “She has to stand at the bow and test the water depth with a leaded line,” he explained. “There may be sandbars near the island which would run us aground. Then we’d be in real trouble.”

  The bulky man glanced around to make sure no other boats were in sight.

  “Albert!” he called. “Bring Mrs. Faraday out.”

  Ellen came out on deck, followed by the fake Albert Johnson, again holding his hat over his gun.

  “We’re pulling into that channel up ahead,” Faraday said to his wife, pointing. “Give me soundings in fathoms.”

  Ellen gave him a quick glance. They didn’t ordinarily bother with nautical terms, Ellen always calling out soundings in feet. She made no comment, however.

  Faraday went aft to start the motor, trailed by the bulky man, while Ellen went forward accompanied by the other man.

  Ellen made her first sounding a hundred feet from the entrance to the channel. “Mark three,” she called.

  As they slipped into the channel entrance, Faraday could tell by the feel of the boat that there was no current here.

  “Mark twain,” Ellen called.

  “What’s that mean?” the bulky man asked.

  “Sixteen feet,” Faraday said. “Two fathoms. We’re safe even at a half a fathom.”

  He maneuvered the boat in to within about twenty feet of the island.

  “Mark one,” Ellen called.

  They were now a good hundred feet down the channel. The water between the island and the river-bank still stretched a good seventy-five feet across, but Faraday let the boat drift to within twelve feet of the island.

  Ellen called, “One half fathom.”

  “That’s our limit of tolerance,” Faraday said. “I’d better pull out a little.”

  But as he turned the motor, there was a dull, grinding noise and the houseboat came to a dead stop.

  “Nuts,” Faraday said, cutting the motor. “We’ve run aground.” He went forward, trailed by the bulky man. The thin-nosed man looked at him ominously.

  “Was that on purpose?” he asked his partner.

  “I don’t think so,” the bulky man said. “The boat only draws three feet, and we were in four feet of water. He was trying to move the boat farther out when we grounded.”

  Taking the leaded line from Ellen, Faraday cast it out in several directions.

  “No problem,” he announced cheerily. “We’re just on a narrow sandbar. It’ll save us throwing out the anchor, and we’ll easily be able to push it off tomorrow.”

  “You had better be able to,” the tall man said coldly. “If you fail, we will proceed by other means and leave your wife here.”

  His tone suggested that Ellen would be left behind dead. Faraday began to wonder if his idea had been so brilliant after all.

  The bulky man said, “Well, let’s have dinner and sleep on it.”

  To prevent any attempt at escape during the night, their captors hogtied Faraday and Ellen to their bunks.

  They did such an excellent job that both quickly abandoned any idea of struggling loose.

  In the darkness Ellen whispered, “I know you grounded us on purpose, but what did it accomplish? We won’t have any trouble getting afloat.”

  “We may if we can delay things until the sun is well up,” Faraday said. “Take as much time as you can preparing breakfast.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “But what do you have in mind?”

  “What kind of fish do you find in the Mississippi in an isolated spot such as this where there is no current?” he asked.

  After a moment of silence, she said, “Mostly gar, I suppose. Why?”

  “And what happens when the sun hits the water?”

  “The ugly things rise to sun themselves.”

  “Uh-huh. These characters know nothing about the Mississippi. I’ll bet they never even heard of an alligator gar. Here’s what I have in mind.”

  He explained his plan in detail.

  In the morning their captors untied them at dawn. They took their time washing and dressing, and afterward Ellen took so long cooking breakfast that the two men began to get impatient. By the time they had all eaten and they got out on deck, the sun was well up.

  The still, muddy water of the channel between the island and the shore was dotted with the long, narrow snouts of alligator gar, some of the heads as long as two feet.

  “What are those things?” their two kidnapers asked simultaneously.

  At the sound of the voices, the nearby heads popped out of sight beneath the surface. The gars farther away placidly continued to enjoy the sun, however.

  With their sharp-toothed jaws they were ferocious looking monsters. Nothing but their heads showed in the muddy water, and since their heads constituted a full third of their total length, it was easy for anyone who had never seen a gar to imagine an enormous body extending beneath the surface behind the head.

  Actually they seldom grew to an overall length of more than six feet, head and all, and possessed narrow, eel-like bodies no bigger around than a man’s wrist. They were totally inedible, but completely harmless to man.

  “They’re alligators,” Faraday said. “This creates a problem. Somebody has to get into the water to get us off this sandbar. Any volunteers?”

  The kidnapers were staring at the numerous-beads still on the surface some distance away. It was obvious that neither questioned Faraday’s identification of them as alligators, which wasn’t surprising, since the alligator gar gets its name from the close resemblance of its head to that of an alligator.

  “The place is alive with them,” the bulky man said with a shudder. “What are we going to do?”

  The tall man looked at Faraday. “What was your planned procedure to get us off this bar?”

  “I planned to get out alongside the boat, between the boat and the island, and pry us free with that four-by-four,” Faraday said, pointing to where the twelve-foot beam lay on deck. “But I’ve changed my mind.”

  The tall man gave Ellen a contemplative look.

  “She isn’t strong enough to handle the beam,” Faraday said quickly. “Besides, she can’t swim.”

  “How likely are those things to attack a person?” the tall man asked.

  Faraday shrugged. “Depends on how hungry they are. I doubt that you’d have a chance swimming the channel to the mainl
and, but right alongside the boat you might get the boat pried free before one of the brutes grabbed your leg. Want to risk it?”

  The tall man looked at his partner.

  “Absolutely not,” the bulky man said definitely. “You are as expendable as I am.”

  The tall man mused for a moment, then came to a decision. “I guess you are elected, Mr. Faraday.”

  “We cannot risk him,” his partner objected. “Suppose they gobble him up?”

  “It’s a risk we have to take,” the tall man said. “The alternative is to stay here surrounded by these monsters until we either starve to death or are rescued by someone. Do you have any better suggestions?”

  The bulky man looked at Ellen, then at the twelve-foot four-by-four and dismissed her as a possibility. “I suppose we’ll have to risk it,” he said reluctantly.

  The tall man turned to Faraday. In a cold voice he said, “We will give you fifteen minutes to get us afloat. If we are not off the bar by then, we will toss your wife to these monsters.”

  Faraday glanced at Ellen. She was pale, but he knew she wasn’t frightened by the thought of the gars, for she was as familiar with them as he was.

  He said with an air of resignation, “All right. I’ll have to change to swim trunks: Will you both stand by the rail with your guns to drive off any alligators who try to attack me?”

  “We want you alive,” the tall man assured him. “We will cover you.”

  The bulky man accompanied him to the bunk room while he changed into trunks. When they came back out on deck, Faraday lifted one end of the four-by-four and heaved it onto the rail. He pushed it over to let it slide into the currentless water, where it floated next to the boat. There was about twelve feet of water between the boat and the island.

  Faraday took a deep breath, said, “Keep your guns ready,” and lowered himself over the side.

  His feet sank a foot into silt and the water came to just above his waist. The two men on deck stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their eyes peering at the opaque water and their guns leveled at it.

  The heavy beam was easy to handle in the water. Directing one end of it against the side of the boat, Faraday pushed on the other end. The prying end slid along the curve of the boat’s bottom until it was lodged in the mud beneath it. Faraday heaved upward on the other end and felt the boat shift outward slightly. He pushed the prying end of the beam back beneath it and heaved again.

  This time the boat floated free.

  Letting the sunken end of the beam rise to the surface, Faraday pushed it toward the rail. The bulky man bent down, lifted the end onto the rail and pulled the beam aboard.

  “Now pull me aboard before one of those things gets me,” Faraday said, wading toward the boat.

  Then he screamed, “My leg!” And began to thrash in the water.

  He caught a quick glimpse of all three faces above him just before he let himself sink beneath the surface. The tall man was horrified. The bulky man for once had lost his expressionlessness and was looking startled. Ellen, who knew there was nothing in the water to attack him, merely looked wary.

  Faraday gave a powerful thrust with his legs and shot underwater beneath the curved bow of the boat. He surfaced on the other side and pulled himself aboard all in the same motion. He stood dripping muddy water and getting his breath back, blocked from the view of those on the other side of the boat by the cabin.

  He slipped into the door of the passageway between the galley and the bunk rooms and came out the other side. Not more than fifteen seconds had elapsed since he submerged, and all three people were still staring down into the water, the two men in stunned shock, Ellen because she was following instructions.

  His bare feet making no sound on the deck, Faraday glided forward. One arm went about the tall man’s shoulders, the other about the bulky man’s, and he hurtled overboard, carrying both with him.

  As they went beneath the surface, his legs scissored about the bulky man from behind and his hands probed for the other’s right hand. Finding it empty, he pushed the man away, wrapped his left arm about the man’s neck and groped for his gun with his right.

  The man still gripped it, but in his terror at being in what he thought was alligator infested water, he offered no resistance when it was jerked from his grip. It slipped from Faraday’s hand and sank.

  Faraday released his scissors grip, put a foot into the middle of the man’s back and pushed. Surfacing, he took three powerful strokes and pulled himself aboard the houseboat.

  By now the boat had drifted out about twenty feet into the channel. The two men, in water to their waists, were floundering in panic for the island. They clambered ashore and stood with clothes dripping, staring at the boat.

  “We’ll send the FBI to rescue you,” Faraday called. “Unless you don’t want to wait. You can probably get halfway to shore before the alligators get you.”

  He went aft to start the engine. As they chugged along the channel southward, the two men were still standing gazing after them.

  If they remained quiet long enough, Faraday knew, the channel would again soon be dotted with the narrow, snaggle-toothed heads of gars sunning themselves.

  He doubted that the men would be gone when the FBI arrived.

  NICE GUY

  Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1969.

  We got the case instead of the Robbery Squad, because when somebody gets hurt or killed during a holdup, it’s Homicide’s baby. The place was a small jewelry store in the eight hundred block of Franklin Avenue. All the shops in that area are small, mostly one- or two-man businesses. The jewelry store was bracketed by a pawnshop on one side of it and a one-man barbershop on the other.

  Gilt lettering on the plate-glass window read: Bruer and Benjamin, Jewelers. A squad car was parked in front and a muscular young cop in uniform stood on the sidewalk before the shop door. A few bystanders were clustered before the pawnshop and barbershop, but the area in front of the jewelry store had been cleared.

  I didn’t recognize the cop, but he knew me. He touched his cap, said, “Hi, Sergeant,” and moved aside to let me pass.

  Inside, the store was long and narrow, with display cases on either side and with only about a six-foot-wide aisle between them. There was another short display case at the rear of the room, with an open door beyond it.

  Another uniformed cop, this one of about my vintage, was inside the store. I knew him. He was a twenty-year veteran named Phil Ritter, and also a sergeant.

  I said, “Morning, Phil.”

  He said, “How are you, Sod?” then jerked his thumb toward the rear display ease. “Victim’s lying back there.”

  I nodded, then looked at the other occupant of the place, a mousy little man of about sixty who stood nearby with an expression of numbed shock on his face.

  “Witness,” Ritter said briefly.

  I nodded again and continued on back to the rear of the place. There was a space on either side of the rear counter. I walked behind it to look down at the still figure on the floor. The man lay on his left side with his knees drawn up in a fetal position. He was lean and thin-faced, with long sideburns and a hairline mustache which made him resemble the villain of some mid-Victorian melodrama. I guessed he had been in his late forties.

  His right arm blocked the view of his chest, but a thin trickle of blood running from beneath the arm indicated that he had a hole in it. There wasn’t much blood, suggesting he had died almost instantly.

  I came back around the counter and asked Sergeant Ritter, “Doctor look at him?”

  “Just enough to verify he was dead. A Dr. Vaughan in the next block. Mr. Bruer here called him.” He nodded toward the little man. “He had to go back to his office, but he said you could contact him there if you want. He also said to tell you he didn’t move the body.”

  “Good.”


  I looked at the little man. He was only about five feet six and weighed possibly a hundred and twenty-five pounds. He had thinning gray hair, wore steel-rimmed glasses and the expression of a frightened rabbit.

  I’ve been accused of intimidating witnesses with my sour manner. This one looked so easily intimidated that I deliberately made my voice as pleasant as possible when I said, “I’m Sergeant Sod Harris of the Homicide Squad. Your name is Bruer?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said in a shaky voice. “Fred Bruer. I’m one of the partners in the jewelry store.”

  “He was the other one?” I asked, nodding toward the rear.

  “Yes, sir. Andrew Benjamin. This is awful. We’ve been business partners for ten years.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “I know this has been a shock to you, Mr. Bruer, but we’ll do the best we can to get the person who killed your partner. You were here when it happened?”

  “Yes, sir. It was me he held up. I was out front here and Andy was back in the workshop. I had just made up our weekly bank deposit—I always go to the bank on Friday morning—and was just drawing the strings of the leather bag I carry the deposit in, when this fellow came in and pulled a gun on me. I guess he must have been watching us for some time and knew our routine. Casing, they call it, don’t they?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “What makes you think he had cased you?”

  “He seemed to know what was in the bag, because he said, ‘I’ll take that, mister.’ I gave it to him without argument. Then he came behind the counter where I was, emptied the register there into the bag, then went behind the other counter and did the same with that register.”

  I glanced both ways and saw identical cash registers centered against the walls behind each counter. “Which counter were you behind?” I asked.

  He pointed to the one to the right as you faced the door. “I can tell you exactly how much he got, Sergeant.”

  “Oh?” I said. “How?”

  “I have a duplicate deposit slip for the cash and checks that were in the bag, and there was exactly fifty dollars in each register in addition to that. That’s the change we start off with in each register, and we hadn’t yet had a customer. We’d only been open for business about thirty seconds when the bandit walked in. I always make up the deposit before we unlock the door Friday mornings.”