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EQMM, July 2012
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EQMM, July 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 photo by Bert Hardy / Getty Images
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CONTENTS
Fiction: HIS DAUGHTER'S ISLAND by Brendan DuBois
Fiction: DEATH IN THE TIME MACHINE by Barbara Nadel
Fiction: FIVE STARS by Mike Baron
Passport to Crime: THE MAN WITH THE FACE OF CLAY by Paul Halter
Fiction: ACTING ON A TIP by Barbara Arno Modrack
Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Steve Steinbock
Fiction: DIAGNOSIS DEATH by N. J. Cooper
Fiction: WHAT THE BUTLER SAW by Judith Cutler
Department of First Stories: THE MALIBU WALTZ by Grant O'Neill
Fiction: CRUEL COAST by Scott Mackay
Fiction: SHAME THE DEVIL by James T. Shannon
Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider
Fiction: DROWNED IN A SEA OF DREAMS by Donald Olson
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Fiction: HIS DAUGHTER'S ISLAND
by Brendan DuBois
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Art by Mark Evans
Recognized as one of the mystery field's best short-story writers, with short-fiction Shamus and Barry awards to his credit and three short-story Edgar nominations, Brendan DuBois also shines at novel length. The latest novel in his Lewis Cole series, Deadly Cove (St. Martin's Press/July 2011), was described by Publisher's Weekly as “suspenseful, satisfying,” with “well-drawn and sympathetic characters” and a “cliffhanger ending."
On a warm day in June, Zach Ford went out on a twenty-foot pontoon boat on Lake Piscassic in Maine, with his best friend Rafer Carlton at the helm, heading for the island where his daughter had been killed. The island was easy to find: It was the biggest one on the lake, boasting a bright white mansion that looked like a Hollywood set had been dropped down from the sky. Zach was sitting next to Rafer, who maneuvered the pontoon boat closer to the island.
“You sure you want to get this close?” Rafer asked, sitting in the helmsman's chair. There was a steering wheel before him, set into an instrument panel, and at his right, the throttle for the sixty-horsepower Mercury Bigfoot engine. A green canvas canopy overhead provided both shade and shelter.
“I do,” Zach replied. “I'll let you know if we get too close.”
Rafer, who wore an old Red Sox ball cap and a striped rugby shirt and khaki pants, gave him a look. The two of them had become friends in high school. Rafer had been a star football player who liked to work with tools; Zach had been on the debate team and had been good with numbers. Rafer had taken math tutoring from Zach, which allowed him to keep his player's eligibility, and Rafer had defended Zach whenever the bored bullies in gym class or the cafeteria decided to have fun with him.
Now Rafer ran an auto-repair shop in the nearby town of Milton, while Zach had a one-man accounting and tax firm. There were just a few other boats out on the lake, and as the island and its mansion grew larger in view, Rafer said, “We close enough?”
“Not nearly enough,” Zach said. He felt his chest grow slow and heavy as they got closer to where his daughter Carol had drawn her last breath. The white mansion was two stories tall, with a wraparound deck and large, floor-to-ceiling windows. There was a green lawn that ran down from the mansion to a sandy beach, and next to the beach were three boathouses, their doors closed. A dock extended from each boathouse. The beach was cluttered with lawn chairs, umbrellas, and other toys for kids and adults.
Large pine trees grew at either side of the mansion, and the way the house was placed meant everyone approaching this end of the lake had to gaze upon it, like it was some sort of temple of worship, Zach thought.
Rafer slowed the motor to a steady purr. “Well, there it be,” he announced. “The retirement home of one Malcolm Preston, brother of the current governor of Massachusetts, financial genius, cutthroat businessman, and otherwise rich miserable bastard.”
“And father of a killer,” Zach slowly said.
A pause from Rafer. “Yeah. The father of a killer.”
With the engine slowed, the pontoon boat wallowed some in the gentle waves. It had two pontoons with a deck built over it, with cushioned seats and railings. It wasn't fancy and didn't move fast, but it was a good boat for those who liked to take a gentle run out on the lake and anchor in an isolated cove for a day of fishing or swimming.
Rafer said, “The way I hear it, when Preston was having this place built, he demanded a sandy beach. Well, you know, there ain't no sand on these islands. Just rocks and pines. But Preston got his way, like he usually does. Actually had beach sand shipped over on the lake. And you know there's no barges around. Nope, the contractors got pontoon boats, just like this one, and shipped the sand over one boatload at a time. Heard it cost almost as much to ship that sand as to build the foundation.”
Zach looked at the large house, saw its attraction for his seventeen-year-old daughter. Why not? Summer was starting, college was beckoning in the fall, and when the richest boy in the area throws a party . . . well, who could blame her? So she and some friends boated out here during Memorial Day weekend, to a place where there would be adults and chaperones and definitely no drinking, don't you worry, Daddy, and so he didn't worry, until that six a.m. phone call on Monday had shattered everything . . .
“Closer,” Zach said. “Let's get in closer.”
Rafer said nothing, just eased up the throttle at his side. Zach was seeing the island through his daughter's eyes, his sweet girl who had done well with her single dad—her mother taken away by breast cancer five years earlier—and who had worked at a number of part-time jobs over the years to sock away what she could for tuition. Not that Carol was perfect—please, some of her moods could cause the sky to rain in a desert—but he knew how fortunate he had been to have such a loving, studious, and cautious daughter.
Nope, this place offered wealth, excitement, and no worries . . . and coming to this place had killed her.
“The closest dock,” Zach said. “Take the boat in. I want to see something.”
“Zach . . .”
“The closest dock, or I'll swim in,” Zach said. “And then afterwards I'll be dripping water all over your nice boat.”
Rafer said, “Don't mind getting the damn boat wet. That's what it's designed for. I just don't want to see you with a bullet in your head.”
“You won't.”
“How come you're so confident?”
“Trade secret,” Zach said.
Another boost of the boat's throttle and they approached the nearest dock. There was a swinging doorway on the port side of the Bennington, and Rafer steered the boat so the dock would be on that side. Zach then tossed over three white plastic fenders so the dock wouldn't scratch the side of the boat.
“You figuring on tying us off?” Rafer asked.
“Just being neighborly,” Zach said. “Why the hell not?”
Rafer put the engine in neutral. The pontoon boat glided in and then Rafer gave the throttle a burst of power in reverse, dropping the boat's speed to a crawl, as Zach stepped out of the boat, the port line and stern line in hand. He went to the cleats on the dock and quickly tied off the boat, stood up, and waited.
From the docks, a crushed stone walkway led up the smooth lawns to the mansion. There were other outbuildings as well: small cottages, toolsheds, places where sporting gear and paddles and lifejackets were stored, and—
Two men strode briskly down the walkway, radios in their hands. Both wore khaki slacks, boat shoes, and tight black T-shirts. Each of them also wore reflective sunglasses and with their short dark hair, they looked like brothers. The nearest one came up to Zach and said, “Can we help you, sir?”
“I'd like to see Malcolm Preston, please,” he said, surprised at how calm his voice was.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I don't. But you can tell him Zach Ford is here to see him.”
“He can't be disturbed,” the same security guard said.
“How about his son, Thomas? Is he available?”
“Sir, really, you should—”
Zach heard his voice get a bit higher. “But of course Thomas isn't here. Thomas is in Europe, so he can't answer for what he did here, what he did to my girl, what—”
The near guard stepped closer. “Sir, I'm really going to have to ask you to leave. This is private property. You're trespassing.”
Zach's hands felt cold. “So what are you going to do if I don't leave? Toss me in the lake? Throw me in the cellar? Get me drunk and give me pills to kill me like my little girl?”
The other guard said, “Sir, please leave. Or we'll call the police.”
He laughed. “There's one police chief and three officers in town. You really think they'll drop everything to come out on a boat to arrest me? Do you?”
The men stayed quiet. Zach looked at them both and said, “My mistake. The chief would do that. The chief would do that because—”
A soft touch to his shoulder, Rafer's voice nearby. “Zach . . . c'mon, let's get out of here.”
Zach turned away from the men, bent over to undo the bow and stern lines, wanting to make sure neither of them could see the tears in his eyes. Back on the boat, Rafer started up the engine.
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A half-hour later, they were moored in a quiet cove that didn't have a view of the island or its huge house. Rafer had brought chicken and cheese sandwiches from the Milton Cove Deli, homemade potato chips, and bottles of Sam Adams beer. When they were finished and working on their second bottles, Rafer leaned back and said, “You know . . . I don't remember much about the English courses we took in high school, but one thing did stick in my mind.”
“And what's that, besides Miss Trenton's impressive bosom?”
Rafer balanced a bottle on his chest. “Something that supposedly happened between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway. Miss Trenton, she said it was probably made up, but it was still a good story. Fitzgerald said to Hemingway, ‘The rich are different from you and me.’ And Hemingway said, ‘Yeah, they got more money.'”
Despite everything, Zach smiled at his old friend. “Yeah, they do. Among other things.”
Rafer took a healthy swallow and said, “Look, Zach . . . I know it's tough . . . no, forget that, I don't know squat. Not even married, so I don't know what it's like to have a kid or lose a kid . . . but Fitzgerald was right. The rich are different, and Malcolm Preston is just the latest one to fit the bill. We both know what happened to poor Carol. That bastard's son got her liquored up, gave her a date-rape drug or some equally nasty crap, and she died out here, without a hospital or ambulance nearby. But we also know what else happened, don't we?”
Zach spent a moment tearing at the wet label on his bottle. He didn't need reminding from Rafer, because he knew exactly what Rafer meant. There was a delay in reporting Carol's death. Malcolm's boy Thomas was hustled off the island, and then sent out to Europe on a private jet, for an unexpected summer semester abroad. Milton Police Chief Hal Diamond conducted a preliminary investigation, and he and the local district attorney ruled the death accidental. The fact that one of Malcolm's companies had earlier donated new police cruisers to the underfunded police department, or that Malcolm's brother, the influential governor of Massachusetts, had come up to Maine to help the district attorney set up a steering committee for an eventual Congressional run . . . well, none of that got mentioned in the local newspaper. Which happened to be owned by a media subsidiary controlled by one Malcolm Preston.
“Yeah, I also know what else happened,” Zach said. “And I'm not going to stand for it.”
Rafer stared at him without sympathy. “So what are you going to do? You saw the security. You were on that dock maybe thirty, sixty seconds before those two goons rolled in. And forget about approaching Preston when he's on shore. He's not the kind of guy you'll see raising a pint at the Flying Loon Bar and Grill.”
Zach said carefully, “So I give up, then? Not seek justice for Carol?”
“No, don't give up,” Rafer replied. “But think about what you mean when you say justice. Blowing off Preston's head with a rifle some sunny day? Gee, how long before the cops figure out a likely suspect. Or hire someone to do it for you? Lord knows there's enough nitwits back in the woods who'd do it for chump change, but when I say nitwits, I really mean it. Knuckleheads would probably end up shooting each other, or going right to the Maine State Police.”
“I could go to Europe.”
Rafer scratched at his chin. “Farthest you've been from here has been catching a Red Sox game in Boston. And sure, you could sue the bastard, but he has enough blue-blood law firms on hand that it wouldn't bother him a bit . . . they'd tie you up in so many knots, my friend . . . and of course, that means you'd have to find a lawyer suicidal enough to go after Malcolm Preston and his clan. You know how the law works. It's on Preston's side. Not yours. Not mine.”
Zach worked on the soggy label some more. “I'm not giving up.”
Rafer said, “I know you're not. But you've got to do it smart. That's all I'm saying.”
Zach brought the beer bottle up, stopped, and then gently lowered it. “Another thing about Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. Remember that book?”
“Please,” Rafer said. “One literary accomplishment per semester, that's my rule, and remembering the Fitzgerald and Hemingway quotes took care of that.”
“In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald said something about Tom and Daisy, the two main characters. That they were rich, they were careless, and that they would break things
and people, and then retreat back into their home, to let others clean up their messes.”
Zach turned, looked out to a spit of land that hid the island. “This . . . this mess, Preston isn't going to walk away from. . . . There will be justice. And I will do it right.”
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The next day Zach drove to the state's largest city, Portland, where he spent three hours at the main city library looking at newspaper files and magazine articles about Malcolm Preston. He glanced quickly over stories about his three marriages, his business triumphs, and his famous brother, and his hands clenched into fists when he spotted an article showing young Thomas Preston with his dad at a charity golf event.
Eventually he found and lingered over an article published in Yankee magazine, a story—complete with photographs—about Preston's island mansion on Lake Piscassic. The place had six bedrooms, two massive living rooms, an elaborate kitchen inside and an outdoor kitchen for barbecues on the rear deck. Besides the boathouses for three high-powered speedboats, there was also a helicopter landing pad in the rear yard.
One quote from Preston stood out: “After years of traveling the globe, doing hundreds of business deals, I finally have what I've always wanted. A refuge, a place to call home, a place to relax and forget the troubles of the outside world. God willing, this perfect island is where I'm going to retire and spend the rest of my life.”
When he was done with that article, Zach spent another half-hour leafing through some books in the legal section of the library, and then drove back home.
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At lunchtime the next day, Zach waited for his secretary to leave before he departed as well. It was another warm June day, but it felt cold to him as he walked along the sidewalk in the small downtown of Milton. Most people he passed knew him, and offered quiet hellos or nods, but no one stopped to speak to him. It was as if his connection to bad happenings—especially those related to such a powerful man as Malcolm Preston—made them shy away.