AHMM, March 2010 Read online

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  CONTENTS

  Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: PERILS AND PREDICAMENTS by Linda Landrigan

  Department: THE LINEUP

  Fiction: THE HATE TAPES by Doug Allyn

  Fiction: BURNING TWILIGHT by Kenneth Wishnia

  Fiction: BOUNDARY BRIDGE by Stephen Ross

  Fiction: IN IT UP TO MY NECK by Jas. R. Petrin

  Fiction: DON'T REVEAL THE BEGINNING by John H. Dirckx

  Fiction: DESERTERS by Chris Muessig

  Department: THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by by Willie Rose

  Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn

  Mystery Classic: THE SHAPE OF THE SWORD by Jorge Luis Borges, Selected and Introduced by Robert Lopresti

  Department: SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER

  Department: COMING IN APRIL 2010

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  Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: PERILS AND PREDICAMENTS by Linda Landrigan

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  Stories arise from specific characters in specific circumstances—and some of the characters in this month's issue find themselves in challenging situations indeed. There's the lead singer of a somewhat over-the-hill classic rock band who falls under the police suspicion when a fan dies at a concert in Doug Allyn's “The Hate Tapes.” Or Kenneth Wishnia's Kassy, a sixteenth-century apothecary who has been exiled from her native city of Prague and prohibited from practicing her craft for more than three days in any one place in “Burning Twilight.” Or another musician, Jas. R. Petrin's hotel lounge performer, for whom the attention of a couple of guests puts him “In It up to My Neck.” But while some of these characters legitimately find themselves in trying circumstances, Stephen Ross's expatriate American script writer exhibits a rather low threshold for the petty annoyances of life in “Boundary Bridge.” Fortunately for us, these characters’ trials make for great entertainment.

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  Department: THE LINEUP

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  Doug Allyn is the author of The Burning of Rachel Hayes (Five Star, 2004), featuring veterinarian Dr. David Westbrook.

  John H. Dirckx is a retired primary care physician. He lives in Ohio.

  Booked & Printed columnist Robert C. Hahn reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and the New York Post.

  Robert Lopresti is the author of the novel Such a Killing Crime (Kearney Street Books, 2005). He is a regular blogger at www.criminalbrief.com.

  Chris Muessig is a veteran of the Marine Corps. He is a part-time English teacher and editorial worker for North Carolina State University.

  Jas. R. Petrin's story “Car Trouble” (December 2007) was published in The Best American Mystery Stories 2008.

  Stephen Ross is a former joke writer for television. He works as an IT programmer and technical writer.

  Kenneth Wishnia's novel The Fifth Servant(HarperCollins) will be published in February. His novel 23 Shades of Black was shortlisted for a 1998 Edgar award.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Fiction: THE HATE TAPES by Doug Allyn

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  Jorge Mascarenhas

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  August, 1991

  Detroit

  The Kurves were rocking through their last set when the fight started. Screaming out his lungs on a power ballad from center stage, Murph watched the swirling turmoil near the dance club's front door without missing a note. He couldn't tell what was going on, the usual roil of drunks around a scuffle, pushing and shoving. As long as they didn't bleed on the dance floor, he didn't really give a damn.

  He was having too much fun. His band was cooking, the dance floor was packed, and the crowd was hardwired into the music, singing along on the choruses, applauding after every solo. Belting out the lyrics to their final song, Murph couldn't stop grinning. A sweltering August night, a pumped-up audience, a gig to remember. There hadn't been many of those lately.

  Across the stage, Punkin duckwalked to the footlights, dropping to his knees, showboating for the swaying, sweat-drenched mob. Murph let him wail through an extra chorus, then another, laughing out loud as the pudgy, red-bearded master of the Stratocaster closed out his solo by nibbling on his guitar strings with his teeth, jacking the energy level in the room to near rock'n'roll orgasm.

  A propane cannon fired off a few feet from Punkin, blasting a sheet of flame fifteen feet in the air, startling him. An unsubtle reminder from Deuce, overhead in the spotlight rigging, that they were supposed to close the damn show at one forty a.m., not next Tuesday.

  Leaping to his feet, Punkin gave Murph a nod, and they ripped into the final chorus together, lead guitar and Fender bass rocketing through the chord changes with ice-pick precision, nailing the riff like a nine pound hammer, driving it home, balls to the walls, then cutting it off. Sharp as a switchblade! Utter silence for a half dozen heartbeats, then they collapsed the tension like an avalanche on the cheering crowd, drum thunder and guitar feedback melding with a Niagara Falls roar of applause.

  "MURPH AND THE KURVES!!! GIVE IT UP FOR THE KURRRVES!!!” Even amped up to twenty-five hundred watts, Deuce's announcement was barely audible above the cheers and whistles of the howling mob. They were shouting and stomping, calling for an encore. Stepping to the mike, Murph gave a roof-raising rebel yell of his own.

  "Yo, gang, that's our show for tonight! Sure wanna thank y'all for comin’ out, hope everybody had a righteous time. Our new CD, Dangerous Kurves, is available at fine music shops everywhere. Buy it, we need the money. Until the next time around, don't do anybody we wouldn't do, hear? And don't take NOOOOO SHIT! from NOOOOOBODY! See ya'll down the road!"

  Murph backed away from the mike, pumping his fist, grinning like a wolf at the whoops and applause echoing through the cavernous old hall like a rebel cavalry charge.

  Overhead in the rigging, Deuce killed the stage lights and punched the Duran Duran CD Wild Boys into the PA system. End of show.

  "Whew,” Punkin whistled, unstrapping his guitar, “good show tonight. Maybe not so hot for the poor bastard who got mugged by the entrance."

  "I saw the scuffle,” Murph said, “couldn't see what happened."

  "Frickin’ bar fight number eight thousand seven hundred and one, that's what happened. Cops are all over it now, so don't flash your stash in the vicinity."

  "I'll do my best,” Murph said, vaulting off the stage to the dance floor. “Start tearing down the gear while I get us paid. We need to be on the road by three."

  "Yassuh, massa boss man,” Hezekiah Ross called from behind his drum set. Ross had tossed his shirt into the crowd during the last set and his hard-muscled ebony frame was gleaming as though he'd been dipped in oil. But he was grinning, too, loose as a goose as he stood up and stretched. Murph was already shouldering his way through the crowd crush and the smoky haze toward the club's office.

  It was tougher going than it should have been. Ordinarily the last song sends the audience streaming for the exits, but the entrance was blocked by three uniformed patrolmen holding their nightsticks at port arms, with two more at the fire exits. A few drunks were jawing at them but Five-O wasn't budg
ing. For the moment, no one was going anywhere.

  Near the entrance, the crowd had formed a semicircle, watching in somber silence as a pair of EMTs wheeled a gurney through the front door toward a body lying on the faded carpet. A dead body, apparently. Somebody had draped a coat over his face.

  Murph barely glanced at the stiff as he edged through the crowd, toward the office. But as the medics lifted the body onto the rack, the coat fell away, and Murph froze in his tracks.

  "Sweet Jesus,” he breathed. “Eddie?"

  A lady cop leaning over the body glanced up sharply, her dark eyes zeroing in on Murph like lasers. She pointed her trigger finger at him.

  "Grab up the guy in the vest,” she told a patrolman.

  "I can't tell you a damn thing,” Murph said. “I don't really know him."

  "You know his name,” the lady cop said mildly. “You called him Eddie, and the name on his driver's license is Edward Martinson. That's more than any of those other good citizens out there could tell me.” They were in a small alcove off the main entrance, a coat room, vacant in August.

  Murph was still dressed for the stage, shirtless, wearing a leather vest that displayed black eagle-wing tattoos from his shoulder blades to his wrists. Black jeans, biker boots, a shaggy mane of blond hair, boyish looks seamed by fifteen years on the road.

  The cop's name tag said r. morales. She was petite but sturdy, her thick raven hair cropped short in a pageboy. She was clad in Dracula black, a nylon police parka over a black Nike turtleneck and denims. Goth chicks wear combat boots as a fashion statement, but Murph guessed Morales's boots were the real deal, complete with steel toes. All business.

  "Look, Officer Morales—"

  "It's Sergeant Morales, actually."

  "Fine, Sergeant. I just play in the band. We were onstage, halfway across the freakin’ building when this went down. I didn't see a thing."

  "But you know this guy. In fact, you seem to be the only one here who did know him. So just tell me everything you know about your buddy and—"

  "He's not a buddy. He's a fan."

  "And the difference would be ...?"

  "If my band plays within a hundred miles of Detroit, Eddie usually shows up. Sits down front, near the stage, decked out in a Kurves T-shirt he bought at one of our concerts fifteen years ago. Big watermelon grin, bellowing along with choruses. Had a voice like a foghorn, couldn't carry a tune in a bucket."

  "Sounds pretty friendly to me."

  "Look, you know those guys you see at football games with no shirts, faces painted up in the team colors, pumpin’ up the crowd like unofficial cheerleaders? Eddie was like that. A fan. A pest sometimes, when he wanted us to autograph a bootleg tape or a scratchy album he found in somebody's garage sale. Started following our band when he was in high school, never gave it up. We were like a hobby with him."

  "So what can you tell me about him?"

  "That's my point. He liked our music, but it's not like we hung out and barbecued burgers on weekend."

  "Was he your dealer?"

  "Dealer?” Murph snorted. “Right. I've got long hair and a few tattoos so right away it's gotta be a freakin’ dope thing?"

  "Settle down, son,” the black patrolman blocking the doorway said. First time he'd spoken. Big guy, built like a linebacker. “Your buddy was carrying a briefcase. Whoever knifed him grabbed it and ran."

  "And since you're the only person he knew here,” Morales continued, “I'm wondering if that case was meant for you."

  "Whoa up. Are you two saying somebody killed Eddie for a damn briefcase?"

  "That's what it looks like. And given the business you're in, it's not out of line to ask about drugs."

  "Lady—"

  "It's Sergeant."

  "Whatever! Look, we're in the music business, not the drug business. And if somebody killed Eddie for a briefcase, they're in for a major freakin’ disappointment. Because that's what they got. Music."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Eddie was a buff! A fanatic. He loved rock'n'roll, collected old posters, old records, and cassettes. Whenever he found one of ours he'd bring it around and the band would autograph the jacket for him. So if you're looking for the French Connection, forget it. All that sonofabitch got away with were some moldy LPs Eddie probably found in somebody's attic."

  "Eddie couldn't have been much of a fan,” the patrolman put in. “A witness said he hated your band."

  "Hated us?” Murph echoed, surprised.

  "A nurse from the crowd gave him first aid,” Morales said. “She said he was mumbling something about hating your music. I wouldn't worry about it. He was probably out of his head."

  "Or his taste in music suddenly improved,” Murph sighed. “Look, the god's truth is, Eddie was a fan and we don't really know our fans. And the little they know about us they get from album covers or Rolling Stone. All we have in common is the music."

  "This poor bastard's been following your band for years, you can't tell us a single thing about him? Nothing at all?"

  "I ... he worked for the city, I think. Meter reader, something like that. He told me once his job let him catch all the garage sales, and he loved rootin’ through abandoned houses for old records."

  "Not much of a life,” the patrolman grunted.

  "Better than the one he's got now, sport. Are we done? My band's tearing down tonight, and I have to make sure everything gets to the bus."

  "Forget it,” Morales said. “This is a crime scene. Everything stays put until we say different."

  "Bullshit!” Murph snapped. “This hallway might be a crime scene, lady, but the stage is a hundred feet away and you've got two thousand witnesses who can swear we had nothing to do with this."

  "And they'd all be wrong. You knew the victim, he was bringing you a briefcase, and now he's dead. You're involved in this somehow, Mr. Murphy, and until I figure out exactly how, you're not going anywhere."

  "No offense, lady—"

  "Sergeant!"

  "I don't give a damn if you're Eliot Ness! We're under contract to perform in Cincy in two days, and before I kiss off ten grand for failure to appear, you'll have to show me a paper signed by a judge. My lawyer's on speed dial. Want me to wake him up?"

  "You seem to know the drill pretty well. Get busted a lot, do you?"

  "No ma'am, but I've been on the road awhile. This isn't the first body I've seen up close and personal. I'm not a civilian. I'd help if I could, but—"

  "You want to be helpful? Glad to hear it. Tell me about this club."

  "It's a rock'n'roll show bar, used to be a movie theater. Holds about twenty-five hundred, features mostly classic rock acts like us, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple. The Kurves play here two or three times a year. The owner, Big Jim Kowalski, runs a tight ship, no trouble, good security."

  "Your friend Eddie might disagree."

  "It's not a church social, Sarge, it's a rock joint. We usually draw a couple of thousand fans. If one percent are whacks, that's two dozen rowdies on any given night. That's why clubs have bouncers. This club has four, one watches the bar, two more cover the dance floor. A kid named Ronnie D. usually works the door. He should have been all over this. Where is he?"

  "On his way to the hospital. We found him in the parking lot, unconscious. Somebody laid his head open."

  "My band's been onstage the past two hours."

  "Nobody said you did it, Mr. Murphy, but you're the only one who seems to know anything about this, and for a guy with a dead friend cooling on the floor, you seem to be in one helluva rush to hit the road."

  "The road's my middle name, lady, it's where we make our living. We've got shows in Cincinnati on Monday, Toledo on Wednesday, and Chicago next weekend. I'm sorry as hell about Eddie, but it doesn't have squat to do with us."

  "Unfortunately for you, we don't know that. And if any questions come up, I don't have time to track you down in Cincy or wherever. If you want to call your lawyer, go right ahead. Tell him he can meet you at th
e Beaubien lockup. I can hold you all as material witnesses for forty-eight hours and I will.” Their eyes were locked now, only inches apart.

  Dark eyes, dark lady, Murph thought. A mystery. He waited for her to back off. She didn't.

  "Okay, how about a compromise?” he offered. “My band has to be in Cincy tomorrow noon to set up and sound check, but I don't actually have to be there till Monday night for the show. Let my guys pack up and hit the road. You can watch ‘em load every bit of equipment if you can stand the boredom. I'll stay over an extra day to answer any questions that crop up. Hell, I'll even help you out. Some of these people might talk to me who won't talk to you. Deal?"

  She glanced the question at Bennett, who shrugged. Her call.

  "Fair enough,” she nodded. “Your guys can tear down their gear, but if you try to split on me, Mr. Murphy, I'll lock up the lot of you in a New York minute. Clear?"

  "Why would I run, Morales? You're the sharpest chick I've met in months."

  "It's Sergeant Morales,” she called after him, but Murph was already pushing through the crowd, headed for the stage.

  "Huddle up!” he barked, vaulting onstage, drawing the group around him in a tight circle.

  "What's up?” Punkin asked.

  "A killing,” Murph said. “The cops think it might have something to do with us. For openers, if anybody's holdin’ dope, lose it now. The law's looking to keep us here, we could get frisked anytime."

  "Why us?” Deuce Duroy, the crew boss demanded. “We didn't kill anybody."

  "The guy who got knifed was a fan of ours. Remember Eddie? Chubby little guy, brings old albums around to sign sometimes?"

  "Usually sits up front, sings along?” Hezekiah asked.

  "That's him."

  "Man, that's a damn shame,” Punkin sighed. “It's tough enough keeping fans without havin’ people murder ‘em. But what's it got to do with us?"

  "Nothing, but the cops don't know that. Ya'll get the gear loaded into the trucks and pony on down the road, ASAP. I'll stay here overnight and catch you up Monday before the show."