AHMM, September 2012 Read online

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  AHMM, September 2012

  by Dell Magazine Authors

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  Mystery/Crime

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  Dell Magazines

  www.dellmagazines.com

  Copyright ©2012 by Dell Magazines

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Cover Art by Cynthia Sheppard

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  CONTENTS

  Department: EDITOR'S NOTE: ESOTERIC KNOWLEDGE by Linda Landrigan

  Department: THE LINEUP

  Fiction: THE VAUDEVILLE DETECTIVE by Garnett Elliott

  Department: MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH

  Fiction: BEEHIVE ROUND by Martin Limon

  Fiction: BIG WATTS by Doc Finch

  Fiction: FOOL'S GOLD by Dee Long

  Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn

  Fiction: BRUTAL by Robert Lopresti

  Fiction: THE BEST LAID PLANS by Jim Ingraham

  Mystery Classic: NIGHT AT THE INN by Georgette Heyer, selected and Introduced by Jane K. Cleland

  Department: THE STORY THAT WON

  Department: COMING IN OCTOBER 2012

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  Department: EDITOR'S NOTE: ESOTERIC KNOWLEDGE

  by Linda Landrigan

  Amateur sleuth stories are most effective when the protagonist brings specialized knowledge or habits of thought to the investigation. This month's issue features a vaudevillian mathematician, a retired Army sergeant, an energy industry consultant, and a gold-rush era gambler pursuing mysteries in their own realms. Two of these stories are written by authors new to these pages: Welcome, Garnett Elliott and Dee Long. In addition to a Georgette Heyer mystery classic, this month's stories also feature a traditional P.I., and a hit man who's having a very bad day.

  We hope you'll apply your expert knowledge of mysteries to these seven fantastic stories!

  —Linda Landrigan, Editor

  [Back to Table of Contents]

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  Department: THE LINEUP

  Jane K. Cleland's latest novel, her seventh in the Josie Prescott's Antiques Mystery series, is Dolled Up for Murder (Minotaur Books).

  Garnett Elliott is a social worker in Tucson. His inspiration for “The Vaudeville Detective” comes from his own family “living and working in Cleveland during the industrial boom.” He is the author of several published stories in the hardboiled genre, inlcuding “Ransom and Red Fingers,” which appears in Beat to a Pulp: Round Two.

  Retired from the U.S. Navy, Doc Finch has worked as an emergency planning consultant to nuclear power plants and has written scenarios for dozens of nuclear emergency drills and exercises. His last story for AHMM, “Watts Up,” appeared in the October 2011 issue.

  Booked & Printed columnist Robert C. Hahn reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and New York Post, among other places.

  Jim Ingraham is the author of Sahara Dust, published October 2011 by Five Star.

  Martin Limon's latest novel to feature Army C.I.D. agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom is The Joy Brigade (Soho Press).

  Dee Long holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina. He's hiked the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Quebec, and currently works at a meditation retreat center in Vermont.

  Robert Lopresti, a librarian at Western Washington University, is the author of Such a Killing Crime (Kearney Street Books, 2005). He blogs at SleuthSayers.org.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

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  Fiction: THE VAUDEVILLE DETECTIVE

  by Garnett Elliott

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  Art by Robyn Hyzy

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  The Starlight Theater, Cleveland, Ohio, 1922.

  William Kreuz's two assistants wrote with furious scratching of chalk. The audience called out figures. One hundred and twenty-one. Five thousand, two hundred and fifty-three. Two million.

  Stage left, an accountant from Foster and Price clacked away at his adding machine, trying to keep pace with the numbers on the blackboard. His breathing grew more ragged each time he yanked the machine's arm back.

  Thirty-six. Twelve thousand, four hundred and fifteen. Eight.

  William withdrew a handkerchief and swiped at his broad forehead. One part of his mind kept track of the audience's growing sum. The other part scanned out into the crowd. Counted seats. Multiplied at an evening weekend ticket rate and subtracted overhead. Projected revenues for the next few weeks.

  Nine hundred and ninety-two...

  He held up his right hand. The audience's chant subsided. Chalk skritch-skratched the final numbers. The accountant pounded keys and yanked even faster.

  “Five million, two hundred eighty-two thousand, four hundred and twenty-nine,” William announced.

  It took the accountant several minutes to check and recheck his figures. Finally, he let his shoulders slump. “Correct.”

  The applause startled William, like it always did.

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  He passed a miniature pony as he exited the wings. The female trainer wore a sequined costume with just enough feathers to keep her out of a burlesque venue. She gave him a taut smile. William, no stranger to stage fright, wished her luck.

  His stomach tickled with mild pain. An ulcer. The years in this business were catching up. Seven, sometimes eight shows a day, traveling, his pay subject to the whims of borderline criminals who called themselves managers. But conditions were improving.

  “You killed tonight, Willy.”

  “Best act of the evening.”

  “Keep ‘em coming. You're feeding us all.”

  Hands clapped his shoulders.

  “A scout's in the audience,” said Gerard, an oft-time actor and scenery hauler. Kohl still rimmed his eyes from a Pyramus and Thisbe sketch earlier in the evening. “Out of New York, I hear. He made a lot of notes watching you.”

  William laughed. “I like Cleveland just fine.”

  That got a chorus of approval from the stagehands. William waved them off and threaded a narrow aisle of tarp-covered props. His stomach started to burn. He ducked through a doorway screened by canvas, into the communal dressing room.

  Greasepaint and stale booze assailed his nostrils. Marguerite Cellini, the aria singer, lay slumped over a vanity. Fast asleep or drunk. Or both.

  He slipped off his jacket. The parlor glass with his ulcer medicine stood in its usual place, atop the armoire. A solution of bismuth and soda. He reached for it, anticipating bubbly-bitter relief. But when he brought the glass to his lips he saw it was empty. Chalky bismuth still clung to the sides, giving the impression of fullness.

  He thrust the glass down next to Cellini with a clank. She must've drained it. The singer was a hypochondriac as well as a lush. Now he'd have to send down to the druggist for more.

  “Marguerite,” he said, touching her plump shoulder, “you're on in fifteen minutes. And you owe me a soda.”

  No response.

  “Oh, for God's sake.” He shook her. The ruffles on her drab pink dress swayed. Her head lolled to one side and William saw that her eyes were open. Pupils impossibly wide, staring at nothing.

  She didn't breathe.

  The patina of smells seeme
d to rise thick from the floorboards, whirling his brain counter-clockwise while his feet danced their way right out from under him.

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  Joe Bernstein revived him with a couple of hard slaps.

  “You fought in the Great War,” the Starlight's manager said, lips wrapped around a cigar, “but the sight of a fat lady's corpse makes you faint dead away.”

  He found that pretty funny.

  But he wasn't laughing when the two tweed suits from Cleveland Homicide showed up. They shut down the theater and gathered the employees for questioning. William got first crack.

  “How well did you know the deceased?” asked the younger of the detectives, a sober-eyed Slav named Wagner.

  “Marguerite? Not very well. Talented, but she had a lot of problems.”

  “Problems?”

  “She drank too much.”

  Wagner wrote that down. “The two of you ever, ah...”

  “No,” William said, feeling himself blush. “I should say not.”

  “We gotta ask,” said the older cop.

  They made him show how he discovered the body. Twice. It felt strange with Marguerite still lying there. Wagner leaned down to sniff the rim of the parlor glass. His forehead wrinkled.

  “You have enemies, Mr. Kreuz?”

  “None who would want to poison me, if that's what you're getting at.”

  “That's what I'm getting at. The coroner's going to be here soon, but I don't think it's too premature to speculate. I want to talk to your druggist. Also the delivery boy who brings the medicine.”

  “I've got their names, somewhere...” William pawed through his jacket and retrieved a small address book. For all his facility with numbers, he had a hard time remembering people.

  “Bring it with you,” Wagner said.

  “With me?”

  “To the station. We're going to need a full statement.”

  He'd had to walk the twelve blocks back from the police department to his boarding house. At two o'clock in the morning the streetcars weren't running and none of the exhausted officers would give him a ride. Every alleyway he passed crawled with shadows.

  Sleep was an impossibility. He knew that even as he gulped a double-dose of sedatives with warm milk. Too much stimulation. Marguerite's awful face staring at him whenever he closed his eyes.

  The nightstand held a German copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Lying crosswise on the bed, he flipped through pages until the sky outside his window began to lighten.

  * * * *

  Bernstein loosed a smoke ring at the ceiling of his tiny office. “You look like hammered crap.”

  “I didn't get any sleep,” William said.

  “Take two days off. Your health is important to the Starlight. My recommendation is to drink yourself stupid. I know a speak two blocks from here, serves decent gin.”

  “Alcohol's bad for my ulcer.”

  “You're not taking this too seriously, are you? For all we know Cellini could've had a heart attack.”

  William shook his head. “I spoke with the coroner's office this morning. Both the parlor glass and Marguerite's stomach showed traces of potassium cyanide.”

  “Huh.” Bernstein snubbed his cigar in a coffee cup. “Someone's trying to kill my top act. I don't like it.”

  “Do you think another manager could be involved? A competing theater?”

  “Nah. Only real competition for the Starlight is Hans Modell's place, the Orpheum. Hans is a real bastard, sure, but not a murderer.”

  Someone knocked at the door.

  “Hold on.” Bernstein slid from behind the desk and helped a stagehand wheel a heavy cart inside. William had to press himself flat against the wall. The cart held an enormous black contraption with a lens on one side and what looked like a cellophane strip dangling out the back. The whole thing reeked of fresh oil.

  “What is it?” William said.

  Bernstein fiddled with the apparatus. “The future. Moving pictures.”

  “Film's made out of silver nitrate,” the stagehand said, pointing at the strip of glossy material. “I wouldn't be smoking around that.”

  “Thanks, Lou,” Bernstein said. “You can go now.”

  William waited until the door had shut. “Can I ask you a serious question? Or are you too engrossed with your machine?”

  “Ask away.”

  “If someone wanted to kill me—professionally, that is—wouldn't they need permission from a local crime figure?”

  “Mobster, you mean.”

  William nodded.

  “And what makes you think the attempt against you was a contract hit?”

  “Something about the way it was set up. The timing. It seemed professional.”

  Bernstein's grin showed gold inlays and nicotine stains. “Not professional enough, seeing as how you're still alive.”

  “Joseph, could you help me? Arrange a meeting with whomever...”

  “That would be Sandor Kovacs. Hungarian mob.” Bernstein pulled at his lip. “He runs everything around here. Not that I have a lot of truck with mobsters, you understand. But Sandor's something of a patron. Comes to the Starlight a lot.”

  “Could I see him?”

  “Possibly. You don't want to wait and let the police do their job?”

  “It's the waiting that's killing me.”

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  The next afternoon, William found himself seated in a teahouse off Eighteenth and Prospect. He never would have guessed the place was mob run. Meetings with gangsters made him think of billiard halls wreathed in smoke. He hadn't expected doilies, matrons dressed in turn-of-the-century frocks, and tablecloths set with Old World silver.

  “Up, please.”

  A woman hovered. Cheekbones made impossible right angles under a pair of gray eyes. When he stood, his forehead came to her chin.

  “You have weapons?”

  He shook his head. She searched him anyway, her bone-white hands probing between jacket and vest, finding only an old pocket watch. Customers at other tables looked elsewhere.

  Those hands. The strength in her fingers. Faded blue dye traced each cuticle.

  “Sveta was a washerwoman before I found her.” A blond man had seated himself across the table. Heavy-lidded eyes, like a libertine. He wore a Hart Schaffner Marx suit.

  William leaned over to shake hands. “Mr. Kovacs?”

  “Mr. Kreuz. Forgive the cliché, but you look taller on stage.”

  “Everybody tells me that.”

  “I've seen at least a dozen of your performances. Sit down. Sveta, bring over some chai and palacinke.”

  Sveta left with a rustle of petticoats. William lowered himself into the chair, uncertain how to begin.

  “They have a name for your talent, you know,” Kovacs said. “'Lightning Calculation.’ And I'd wager that's not all you can do.”

  “Well ... it's esoteric, really.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I have photographic recall for numbers. Birthdates. Anything associated with a number. I can tell you the twenty-fifth of August two thousand and ten will fall on a Wednesday. Not that there's much practical application for such things.”

  Kovacs steepled his fingers. “On the contrary. I can think of several applications.”

  “I don't want to seem too forward, Mr. Kovacs, but I didn't come here to talk about my abilities. Two days ago someone tried to poison me—”

  “And you were wondering if I had a hand in it. Your employer told me as much.”

  Sveta reappeared, holding a samovar enameled in blue and white flowers. She began pouring tea while another woman laid out platters of food. Crepes dusted in powdered sugar. Slabs of bacon with paprika ghosting the crinkled edges. Preserves. Kovacs took a spoonful of black currant jam and swirled it into his tea. “I appreciate your forthrightness. The answer is no.”

  “Ah.” William wasn't sure if he should feel relieved or disappointed.

  “I'm much more of a businessman these days, Mr. Kreuz. The Pr
ohibition movement has created many profitable opportunities. So really, contract murder is out.” He took a long sip. “But I am in a position to help you. My associates could make inquiries.”

  “That's not necessary—”

  “Just a moment. You went to some trouble to arrange this meeting, yes? And my time is valuable too. So consider. The police are bound by conventional methods. Your safety is not their priority. I, on the other hand, can offer substantial protection while I investigate.”

  Protection. William rolled the word around in his head. “I don't have much money, Mr. Kovacs.”

  “Sandor. Please.”

  “I'm not sure what I can offer you.”

  The gangster leaned close to fork a crepe onto his plate. “We'll come up with something.”

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  A thunderstorm rolled in from Lake Erie. It spent the evening rattling windows and making flashbulbs go off in the murky distance. At midnight the clouds slid back out over the lake, only to return around three a.m. The rumbles jolted William awake.

  He'd been dreaming. Mephistopheles had come to the Starlight in the form of a blond, well-dressed gangster. They'd discussed the price of his soul over tea.

  Somehow he fell back asleep.

  Hours later, trudging up the stairs from breakfast, he found a tow—headed boy waiting outside his door. A newsie, from the look of him.

  “You William Kreuz?” The boy's Polish accent was thick as creamed wheat.

  “I am.”

  “I was told to tell you this: Icehouse. Eastside docks, number sixteen.”

  “Who sent you?”

  A pair of very blue eyes stared at him.

  “Just a moment.” William went inside to get a tip, but when he came back out the boy was gone.

  * * * *

  The stevedores gave him rough looks as he searched the waterfront. French Canadians in overalls and long tasseled caps, hustling pairs of burlap sacks that must have weighed eighty pounds apiece. Lake Erie lapped at the pilings beneath their feet. Overcast, the water was the color of old coffee.