by Liz Turner
“It was at that point that he telephoned his employer—the Allied Forces currently occupying Berlin, would be my guess—to let them know the bad and good news: he had located the canisters, but he had struck out in getting one so far. You, Mrs. Neumann—or your employer—must have intercepted the call and decided to come down and finish the job. You booked the next flight to Boston, took the train to Cape Cod, and slipped into the garden shed he had described—your lithe figure is perfect to fit through that small window—and stolen a canister. Then you greeted your husband as though you had simply wanted to see him, met him in the park, and promptly sprayed him with cyanide, killing him in a few moments,” Hallie continued.
Mrs. Neumann laughed and clapped her hands sarcastically. “My, my. The Cape Cod authorities certainly do have quite the imagination. I am a spy? And my husband is a spy? Is everyone here a spy? The war is over, my friends. I am simply on vacation. What happened to my poor husband was a terrible tragedy. I will hire a lawyer if you insist on making these wild accusations.”
Hallie was at a loss. Mrs. Neumann was right. They had nothing more than hunches and circumstantial evidence to prove what they knew to be true. If she didn’t confess—they’d have to let her go. If only she still had those pages she had translated from the poetry book! Then she could prove that Mrs. Neumann was the real criminal here.
Eliza grunted. As everyone turned to look at her, she sheepishly began to speak, looking at the floor. “I… suppose it is about time for me to explain my side of the story. As some of you may have guessed—” At this, Eliza looked around the room, at all but Hallie. “I was Tobias’ partner. I came early to look for the canisters, and once I found them, I procured a job at the boarding house to ensure things went smoothly with the mission. But, of course, they did not…because of Mrs. Neumann’s interference.” Her eyes remained pointed to the floor, and she sighed heavily. “After I learned of Tobias’ death, I knew he must have been compromised. And I knew I needed to erase myself from the mission before Mrs. Neumann or anyone else found out about my involvement.”
“The poetry book!” Hallie exclaimed, putting two and two together.
“Yes…” Eliza said sadly. “I needed to destroy it. So, I followed you, Doctor Malone, and discovered that it was in your possession. I simply waited for an opportunity when you were alone, and then I stole it back.”
“You did more than steal something!” Truman boomed angrily. “You could have killed Doctor Malone!”
Eliza nodded solemnly. “Yes, I know that. Although I hope you understand, Doctor, that my intention was never to kill you—I am skilled at what I… do. I knew how hard to push you so that you wouldn’t be seriously hurt.”
Hallie grimaced, hoping she was right about that. The pain in her head was getting worse. “So, it was you who stole the book? How did Mrs. Neumann end up with it?”
Glaring at Mrs. Neumann, Eliza said, “After tearing out the pages with anything pertaining to the mission written on it, I came here to confront her. We both, Tobias and I, knew she had been working for someone else for some time now, but we never dreamed she would actually choose the job over her family. I was furious with her. She must have seen me coming through her window because she was ready for me when I arrived. She overpowered me and took the book back. Next thing I know, I’m hearing all kinds of commotion out in the hallway, and then you guys are barging in here.” Eliza grinned and slowly pulled something from her waistband. It was a small stack of paper. “I meant to destroy these and return to Europe, but my secret is out…and I’d rather see Mrs. Neumann to prison, even if it means implicating myself in the process.” She handed the paper to Hallie.
Hallie unfolded it. The missing pages from the poetry book! Now it was her turn to grin. She flipped through the pages until she came to the very last one. Then she turned to Mrs. Neumann. “I guess you never got the chance to read all of your husbands’ ciphers in here,” she said. “I did. It turned out Tobias Neumann used the book as a clandestine diary of sorts as well as a place to work out the details of his mission. Now most of his writings tell us the things we’ve just explained to you—his mission, his failings. But this last entry is different….” Hallie began to read straight from the book. “‘My wife has just arrived in town. Unexpectedly. My training has taught me to be suspicious of the unexpected. She claims she missed me. But I worry because I never told her the precise town in Cape Cod in which I was staying. Yet, here she is, fresh off the train. I have told E our plans just in case something should happen: We are meeting tonight in the park. I hope it is not what I fear—that she has double-crossed me.’”
Mrs. Neumann began to tremble. “I….” she faltered. She had begun breathing heavily and was eying the exits. But the young officers held fast to her arms, preventing her from moving.
Truman spoke up, adding, “I do wonder who your employer is, Mrs. Neumann? The KGB in Moscow? The Russians? Japan? The war, it seems, is not quite over for some…” he said, shaking his head sadly.
Hallie was looking intently at Mrs. Neumann. Her face had gone slack; she wore a blank expression. But she was moving her hands in her dress pockets, and suddenly, she moved to put something in her mouth. All three of the young officers were on Mrs. Neumann in a second, tackling her and pinning her hands behind her back. “Oh no you don’t!” one of them shouted, wrenching something from her right palm. He held it up; it was a small red pill. Grinning cheekily, he said, “I’ve read enough spy novels to know that when a spy is compromised, their only choice is to swallow a pill and kill themselves to avoid revealing any information.” Promptly, Detective Truman had her in handcuffs.
Hallie was thrilled—many fumbles later, and they finally had the right woman in custody. She looked sadly at Eliza, who was still sitting in her chair in the closet. “Thank you, Eliza, for doing what you did—without those missing pages, I don’t think we would have had enough to arrest her.”
Eliza returned her gaze, her blue eyes wet. “For Tobias,” she said firmly. “I’ll be arrested now, too, is that right?”
Hallie nodded slowly, and the woman allowed herself to be handcuffed and walked out of the room by one of the officers.
Epilogue
T he fire roared five feet tall. Its heat spread a ten-foot radius. Throngs of people, including both the vacationers and the locals, celebrated the Sandwich end-of-summer beach party and mingled around the large bonfire in the center of the beach, wearing colorful bathing suits and wide-brimmed hats. Some lounged on white wicker chairs, sipping cocktails and chatting with new friends, others splashed and dove in the ocean’s gentle, rolling waves. The sounds of talking and laughing created a homogenous murmur that nearly competed with the ocean sounds. The sun was minutes away from setting and had soaked the sky with swirling purples and pinks. In a few weeks, most of these people would head back west, or north, or south, to their rest-of-year homes. The peninsula would retract for the colder months, stripped of the energetic tourists. The locals, even, would soon neglect the beaches as it grew too frigid to make use of them. Children would no longer make daily treks through the high dunes or explore the craggy cliffs; they’d be in school. The crowded beach-adjacent boarding houses and hotels would shut their doors and weatherproof the siding, not to reopen for months. Many parts of Cape Cod would go back to isolation.
Hallie mused on this as she dug her toes deep into the sand and turned her face toward the sea, welcoming the brisk breeze in place of the blaze from the fire. It didn’t seem like a sad thought—that the peninsula would suddenly return to silence in a few weeks. It felt right. A chance for nature to stretch lazily back through the foreign grooves that the busy season had chiseled out. Perhaps the locals would get some of their pre-tourism-boom city back. Maybe I’ll return here in winter, she thought. Her own departure date was next Saturday. She already felt nostalgic for her summer in Cape Cod, even though she was looking forward to returning to her life in Warrenton. I’d like to see what people mean when they talk about the area bef
ore the tourists came. I’d like to experience this place as it was meant to be.
So many of her new Cape Cod friends had invited her to take part in tonight’s festivities, and Hallie had spent the better part of the evening so far flitting between them all, catching up on fall plans, and promising to write. Now, however, she had found a cool spot in the sand, a bit away from the crowd. She was content to sit and watch people she had grown to be so fond of.
Down by the ocean, Detective Truman and his crew were flinging a frisbee back and forth, their ankles submerged in water. The young officer who had tackled Mrs. Neumann some weeks ago and prevented her from taking the pill that would have killed her had been promoted to detective shortly afterward. Because they had been able to take the spy into custody, they learned valuable information about enemy forces in Europe, which they quickly relayed to the Central Intelligence Agency. Both Mrs. Neumann and Eliza had been transferred to a federal prison down south, but Eliza’s sentence had been lessened after she agreed to cooperate and tell everything she knew.
Hallie smiled as she remembered a declaration from one of the officers shortly after the arrest: he now had a new dream, to be a CIA agent. She could hear the splash from where she sat as Truman dove for the frisbee and hit a large incoming wave with his full body, and she couldn’t help but chuckle to herself. She was glad the city of Sandwich would have Detective Truman around to protect its citizens.
Bart Langley, her neighbors Teddy and Isobel’s son, dashed fifty yards front of her, apparently engaged in a heated race against another young man whom Hallie didn’t recognize. The Langley’s son had joined them in their vacation in Cape Cod these last two weeks of summer, during his own short break from Dartmouth. Hallie had recently been invited to dinner at their house, and she had been impressed by the young man’s maturity. He had his mother’s tanned skin and his father’s sense of humor. Hallie held her hand up, blocking the remaining sun from her eyes, and scanned the beach. She glimpsed Teddy and Isobel laughing with a group of their friends by the fire. Hallie smiled, grateful for these friendships she had made.
A giggling group of young women were to Hallie’s left, cooing over a puppy burying its nose in the sand. Shirley Miller stood in the center. She had a brilliant smile on her face. A young man teased her, and she shouted happily, chasing him down the beach, until he suddenly turned and started tickling her. Hallie was satisfied to see the girl at her old self again. She had been worried about her—she had been taking the death of Tobias Neumann personally, guilty, as though she could have somehow prevented it. But after Hallie had relayed to her the outcome of the case, and Tobias’ real profession, Shirley had begun to understand that somehow or another, he would have ended up dead. She accepted it wasn’t her fault.
And then there in quite an intimate huddle by the bonfire were Miss Jameson and Dr. Peterman. Hallie was somewhat surprised by this development; there was an age difference between them of at least ten years. But as she watched them together, she understood. Peterman had a quiet confidence that perfectly offset Jameson’s exuberance. Two extremely independent people, both focused on career, had not had time to explore romantic possibilities until much later in life. Hallie watched as Jameson pulled Dr. Peterman to his feet and dragged him, protesting, down to the ocean. In the face of her cheerful teasing, he quickly relented and allowed himself to be soaked to his hips by an approaching wave.
Hallie even spotted Bruno Moretti, the Beachside Boarding House gardener, building a sandcastle with two small, black-haired, tanned children. She had little doubt they were his children. Moretti landscaped the sand as well as he did the grass and apple trees—the castle was quite impressive. Suddenly, the smaller of the children, a little boy, stood up and, looking with wild eyes at his father and sister, dropped his small form into the structure. He rolled around, laughing hysterically, until the thing was destroyed. The little girl laughed and clapped her hands, and Moretti feigned anger, before sweeping the kid up in his arms and twirling him around. Sand flew from the boy’s ankles, annoying some passerby.
Hallie was watching this spectacle with delight when someone called her name. She turned to see Truman heading up from the ocean to her.
“How’s the noggin’?” he asked, rapping his own head with his knuckles.
Pretending to frown, Hallie replied, “Oh, it’s perfectly fine—better than yours will ever be, I might add!” Following the arrest of Mrs. Neumann, Hallie had reluctantly readmitted herself to the hospital. What came next was a four-day stay full of scans and tests. It was determined that she did have a minor concussion, but nothing more serious. After the few days of rest, fluid, and close monitoring, she had been allowed to return to her house by the bay. Detective Truman and the whole crew had been to see her several times when she was at the hospital, though, despite Hallie’s persistent protests that it was “nothing.” All that remained now was a faint discoloring near her hairline.
Truman laughed at her joke. “So, you’re with us until next week, is that what I’ve heard?” he asked.
“That is the plan. I’ve got a job and friends waiting for me at home. I’ll certainly miss this beautiful place, though. And all our adventures! Try to avoid any high-profile spy mysteries while I’m away!”
“Oh, believe me. If anything like that ever happens again, we’ll be sure to ring Doctor Malone first thing. Why, she’s the best detective we’ve got on the force.” Truman sat down in the sand beside her and held out his hand in an abruptly professional manner for her to shake. “It was wonderful working with you. I think I speak, on behalf of all of Cape Cod, when I say that we’d like it if you’d return next summer.”
Hallie threw back her head, laughing freely. “Of course! And who knows? Maybe I’ll be back before then.”
*** The End ***
THE BAKERY TRUCK MYSTERY
A Dr. Hallie Malone Cozy Mystery
LIZ TURNER
Chapter 1
That’s a
Brand-New Car
1952
T he bar at Loch’s Gentleman’s Club was a lively scene, glass tumblers of whiskey sliding down the deep cherry wood surface every two minutes to be snatched up by the after-work crowd. Men wearing gray suits lingered in fabric arm chairs, politely sipping their drinks and smoking, or laughed heartily by the fireplace, slamming their palms down on the stone mantel. Cigarette smoke filled the room, swirling in the dim lights. A group was playing cards in the back and occasionally one of the players let out a loud whoop.
The club had been founded only a few years after the town was, the current owner the grandson of the original. He was one of Warrenton’s most respected citizens, as were most of the patrons of the club, but he was rarely present during operating hours, preferring to appear for special events. He left most of the job of running the club to Johnny Pincer. Johnny was younger, with a steely gaze and a deep devotion to the club. He served every night as the bartender, but he also managed everything from inventory to bookkeeping.
“Why, I ought to sue you!” someone shouted menacingly from the back of the club.
Johnny Pincer’s ears perked up. Not tonight, he thought. It had been a long day, and he simply needed the night to be uneventful. It wasn’t often that fights broke out at the club, but when they did, they tended to be ugly. This crowd was one of reserved gentlemen, professionals. It took a lot to make them lose their tempers, and when they did, they lost all restraint.
“Excuse me,” Johnny mumbled to a patron at the bar and headed to see what all the trouble was about. When he got there, he found that the row was over a poker game.
“Johnny, Johnny, you’re a man of integrity—you tell this man that Loch’s does not tolerate cheating of any sort!” shouted a man who was growing red in the face.
Before Johnny could respond, his opponent spoke up angrily. “No, you tell this imbecile that you know me and you know I would never stoop to what he is suggesting! I tell you, I won this round fair and square.” The man speaking
was one of the club’s regulars, an accountant, Johnny remembered.
Sighing, Johnny asked, “Will someone please explain—calmly—what happened?”
The accountant began to speak. “I wanted to be dealt into the game, and I was. Then I won the round. That’s all, plain and simple.”
The other man let out a snort. “Ha! This man comes in and professes that he’s a pure novice at the game. Novice—his words! Well, he turned out to be quite the actor, and quite the poker player too. Wins the first round! He’s a hustler, if I ever saw one. I would like my money back.”
Johnny eyed the group. Finally, he said, “Here’s what I propose. You give the money back, but only if he agrees to a second round of poker. You’ll be playing with full awareness of what the other is capable of, so there won’t be any hustling. But,” Johnny eyed the first man. “You can’t be upset if you lose to a player who is better at the game than you, nor can you exclude him simply on that basis.”
The gentlemen grumbled but eventually accepted the terms, lighting up cigarettes and dealing another round of poker.
With a sigh of relief, Johnny returned to his post at the bar just as a customer entered the club and made a beeline for it.
“What’ll you have?” Johnny asked the man who had just sidled up the bar and was removing his hat. The newcomer was not from Warrenton, Johnny knew that right away—he knew every professional man in town and most of the blue-collar workers, too.
The man looked around the rooms of the club, noting the attractive decor, the free-flowing liquors, the floor-to-ceiling wood that gave the place a nautical feel. Sighing in approval and letting a small grin peek around his thin lips, he said, “Boy, sure does feel good to find a place like this in every town you visit. Makes me feel right at home in every city! I’m a traveling salesman, you see. I high-tailed it to your club as soon as I spotted the sign when I pulled up in town from the station. I’d go mad with homesickness if it weren’t for good ole’ places like this. Treat a fellow right.” He paused then took a seat at one of the high stools at the bar. “Let’s see then, I’ll have a Tom Collins if you will. And say… I don’t suppose you’ve got any tobacco tonight?” The man pulled a pipe out of his suit jacket and tapped the end of it knowingly.