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Copyright ©2005 Dell Magazines
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CONTENTS
Editor's Notes: The Nature of Crime
Journey to Oblivion by John H. Dirckx
The Tanabata Magpie by I. J. Parker
The Timber Snake by Doug Allyn
The Chant of the Powwow by Janice Law
Conversation with Janice Law
The Last Day of the Season by Lawrence K. Furbish
Block by Michael Z. Lewin
Yellow Bear is Missing by Mitch Alderman
The Green Spider by Sax Rohmer
The Mysterious Photograph
The Story That Won
Busman's Holiday
Booked & Printed
Reel Crime
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Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
September 2005
Vol. 50 No. 9
Dell Magazines
New York
Edition Copyright © 2005
by Dell Magazines,
a division of Crosstown Publications
All rights reserved worldwide.
All stories in Alfred Hitchcock's
Mystery Magazine are fiction.
Any similarities are coincidental.
Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
ISSN 0002-5224 published monthly except for January/February and July/August double-issues.
Linda Landrigan: Editor
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Editor's Notes: The Nature of Crime
Summer is the time when many of us long to be outdoors—but are kept cooped up inside by jobs and responsibilities. This month AHMM offers a little chill for those warm summer nights with a lineup of stories where nature provides a vivid backdrop for crime and mayhem.
A wiley, Upper Peninsula trapper in Doug Allyn's story “The Timber Snake” brings a bit of nature to the local office of the Department of Natural Resources, but they aren't so amused, and soon a battle of wits ensues. A woman's “journey to oblivion” begins when she starts off on a vacation and has car trouble in the middle of a thunderstorm in our cover story, “Journey to Oblivion” by John H. Dirckx. And human nature is what is most in evidence in I. J. Parker's historical (11th century Japan) detective tale, “The Tanabata Magpie."
An Algonquin “witch” is the central character in Janice Law's eerie tale, “The Chant of the Powwow.” In a conversation with Ms. Law following the story, this versatile author shares her thoughts about writing the female sleuth and discusses her evolution from writing a mystery series to non-mystery stand-alones.
We also welcome Lawrence K. Furbish to these pages this month. Mr. Furbish is recently retired from the Connecticut General Assembly where he was the director of the Office of Legislative Research. He now lives in his hometown of Sanford, Maine, in the house his grandfather built. Mr. Furbish's interest in the outdoors is evident in his story, “The End of the Season.” He enjoys fly-fishing, gardening, woodworking, and Maine history.
And if you just happen to find yourself in the Minneapolis area this summer, we encourage you to visit Uncle Edgar's Mystery Bookstore, which will soon be celebrating a major milestone. Check out our Busman's Holiday column and see why.
—Linda Landrigan
[Back to Table of Contents]
Journey to Oblivion by John H. Dirckx
A raucous wind clawed at dumpling-shaped clouds, goading them across a dishwater sky to create a false twilight at two in the afternoon. Angry drum rolls of thunder, following immediately on fitful flickers of lightning, showed that the storm was passing directly overhead. The rain came suddenly, like handfuls of pebbles thrown against the windowpanes.
For Laverne Bott, the ferocity of the storm raging outside only emphasized the coziness of her retreat. Nestled in the fireplace nook of the parlor at Crestview, she took another sip of herbal tea and turned up the volume of the TV, as the characters in her favorite soap moved toward yet another meaningful encounter.
But eventually she heard, above weather and melodrama, a determined banging at the front door, and went to answer it. On the covered porch a bedraggled woman in early middle age stood dripping water like a sponge. “I hope you're open this time of year,” she said, in a tone bordering on desperation.
"We're open all year round,” Laverne assured her. “This is just the slack season. Are you by yourself? You didn't call, did you? Come in, come in. Do you need help with that?"
"Yes, I'm by myself.” The woman on the porch hefted a bulging suitcase into the entry hall. “I guess I should have called, but this wasn't exactly a planned excursion—"
"Take your coat off and come in by the fire. There aren't any other guests right now. You can pick your own room if you want to. The view to the rear is the best, if it ever stops raining."
The newcomer draped her sodden raincoat over an antique chair in the entry hall and, a little befuddled by this barrage of chatter, followed her hostess into the parlor, where more antiques stood cheek by jowl in a mad jumble.
"It's just me and my brother,” Laverne was saying. “You won't see him, but he does the cooking. His turtle soup is the specialty of the house. Can I get you a cup of tea?"
* * * *
Detective Sergeant Cyrus Auburn looked up from the litter of folders and reports on his desk to see Lieutenant Savage shepherding a visitor into his office. The visitor entered first and over her shoulder Savage shot Auburn a brief glance full of sardonic glee.
"Cy, this is Miss Bernish—"
"Miss Charlene Bernish,” she interjected.
"—and she'd like some help in locating her sister—"
"Miss Christine Bernish."
Auburn rose politely. His visitor, a fiftyish woman in a tailored suit, smiled broadly and shook hands before taking the proffered chair. Savage exited, grinning.
"How long has your sister been missing?"
"About three weeks.” She was examining Auburn's office like a housing inspector looking for termite damage.
"Have you been in touch with the department about your sister before today?"
"No. We live in Temple Cedars, about thirty-five miles north."
"I know exactly where that is,” nodded Auburn. “A quiet little farm town."
"Yes, a little too quiet for the rising generation. They grow up, they move away.” Then, as if to explain her interest in the youth of the community, she said, “I teach high school. The students
are on spring break this week, and I'm braving the wrath of the school board by missing staff development meetings to track down my wandering sister."
Auburn could imagine her explaining quadratic equations or the Spanish-American War in the same terse and limpid fashion. She wore no jewelry and her ears had never been pierced.
He pushed papers aside and found a blank file card. “Did you have some reason for thinking she might have come here?"
"A pretty good reason.” She pulled an envelope from her purse and laid it on the desk in front of him. “That arrived in her mail on Friday."
It was a form letter from a local garage, thanking Miss Bernish for choosing them to do her recent repair work and asking her to return the enclosed customer satisfaction card.
"Did you have any idea your sister was coming this way until you got the card?"
"Until she got the card.” She flashed him another smile to show that she didn't really think the distinction was important. “Except of course she wasn't there to get it."
"Do you and your sister live together?"
"Not for the last four or five years. But I have a key to her house, and I go in every day to get her mail and make sure everything is okay."
"So you were aware she was leaving, but you didn't know where she was going?"
"Exactly. She called before she left and asked me to watch the house for a few days. That was on the nineteenth of February."
"And she hasn't called or written since then?"
"Not a word. I went through all her mail—even opened last month's canceled checks—but I didn't find any clues as to where she went."
"Credit cards?"
"She has one, but she hasn't used it in six months."
Auburn looked at the letter again. “Have you been in touch with this garage?"
"Yes, and so were the police at home. They confirmed that Christine had some engine work done there on the twentieth."
"What else did your local police do?"
"They put together a report with Chris's picture and sent it out through the usual channels. Your lieutenant found a copy of it in the files downstairs.” She pulled her own copy of the report out of her purse and held it folded on her lap. “And they checked with the phone company to see if she'd made any long-distance calls in the past few weeks. They suggested I hire a private detective if I wanted any more investigation done. I get the general impression that most disappearances are voluntary."
"For an adult male, yes. For a woman traveling alone, the chances of foul play are a little higher. She was traveling alone, wasn't she?"
"Oh certainly."
"May I see that?"
"This picture's three years old.” She handed him the missing person report. Christine Bernish looked like a stouter and less self-sufficient version of Charlene. Her age was listed as fifty-four. The report included a description of her Cadillac and its registration number.
"Does your sister have friends or relatives in this area?"
"No relatives, and no friends that I know of."
"Did she have a boyfriend?"
Charlene Bernish pulled a long face. “I'd better give you some background information,” she said. She squared her shoulders and her manner became even more didactic than before. “Our parents were tenant farmers in Carney County and they were always in debt. Christine never had a dress that I hadn't worn first, at least not until she was halfway through high school. I got to go to college, but all our parents could afford for her was training as a practical nurse. She did that for several years, saved her money, and eventually became a registered nurse.
"She didn't care for hospital work, so she did private duty in her patients’ homes. About six years ago she inherited a lot of money from one of her patients. His family raised a terrible ruckus, but they couldn't overturn the will. After that she retired, built herself a house, and settled down to enjoy life.
"But she never learned how to handle all that wealth. She gave enormous tips. She carried cash because she didn't need credit cards anymore. She threw away money on junk jewelry. And of course as soon as the word got out that she was loaded, the flies started gathering around the honey pot.
"Chris was awfully naïve, if you know what I mean, awfully vulnerable.” (Not, thought Auburn, like you.) “But after she got stung by a couple of Mr. Wrongs, she turned man-shy—thought they were all phonies. Except maybe one."
Auburn looked up expectantly from the report. “One that wasn't a phony?"
"Or maybe one that was a little smarter than the others. Ellison Trask. Sounds like the heavy in a novel by Trollope or Thackeray, doesn't he?” So maybe she taught English lit.
"Have you been in touch with him?"
"No. I've never met him. I don't even know where he lives, but apparently it isn't in Temple Cedars. I keep thinking maybe Chris drove down this way to meet him..."
Auburn opened the telephone directory and failed to find an Ellison Trask. “Do you know anything about him at all?"
"Very little. Except that whenever Chris talked about him she whispered, and her eyes got a kind of dreamy, moon-calf look."
"Do you know how they met?"
"I'm sorry, but I have no idea."
"How's your sister's mental health? Has she ever disappeared before, or threatened suicide, or attempted it?"
"Absolutely not. She's as sane as you are. She goes away by herself on trips two or three times a year, but she's always kept in touch before."
"Did you go to this garage, or just talk to them on the phone?"
"I phoned them Friday from home, and so did our local police."
"I think we ought to check with them and see if they can give us any information about your sister's plans when she left there."
"Sounds good to me. Shall I drive? My car's at a meter on the street."
They moved her car to the lot behind headquarters, and Auburn drove them to Hennessy's Garage, a huge full-service establishment northeast of town near the intersection of State Route 12 and the interstate. At two o'clock in the afternoon the service department was working at capacity. The service manager found a file copy of the record of warranty work—repair of a broken valve lifter—done on Christine Bernish's car on February 20. Her sister recognized the signature on the document, but in order to clinch the identification she showed him the picture in the missing person report.
"Do you see all the work orders in that rack?” asked the service manager, who looked as if he were counting the days until a promotion get him out of this rat race. “Do you see all those cars in there and out on the lot? Fifty or sixty people come through here every day. They've all got the same cars, they've all got the same things wrong with their cars, and pretty soon they've all got the same names, the same faces, the same junk crammed in the glove box when they're trying to find their warranty. I couldn't tell you if this woman was here in the last half hour."
"Can you tell from the record what time she picked up her car on the twenty-first?” Auburn asked.
"No, sorry.” He looked at the work order again. “And this cashier, Courtney, has already gone on to greener pastures. One thing, though. I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but this car had to be towed in here. The guy that did the tow might be able to tell you something."
He opened a door behind the office that led into the garage proper. “Hey, Greeves!"
"Out on a run,” yelled a voice from amid the metallic screaming of an impact wrench and the musical clangor of tempered steel tools dropped on industrial strength concrete.
"Oh no, he ain't!” came in a singsong that mimicked the cadence of the previous response. A big man in his thirties emerged from a back room, wiping grease from his hands with about ten paper towels in a wad.
Greeves had towed Christine Bernish's car from the exit ramp of the interstate where she had pulled off when her engine started clattering. He thought it was the day of the thunderstorm, and after seeing her picture he was sure of it.
"Was she trave
ling by herself?” Auburn asked him.
"Yes, sir."
"She had to leave her car here overnight and take a rental car,” said Charlene. “Do you happen to know where she stayed that night?"
By this time the service manager had abandoned them to deal with paying customers. Greeves drew them away from the counter.
"I wouldn't want it to get back to nobody here that I told you this,” he said, “but she didn't have no rental car. They put that on all the warranty jobs just to jack up the price because the manufacturer's got to pick up the tab. You with me?"
They assured him that they were.
"She stayed at one of these whatchamacallit bed-and-breakfasts,” said Greeves. “She saw their sign right before she had to pull off. Said she wanted to go there, so I shuttled her and her suitcase out in the van."
"Which bed-and-breakfast was it?"
"This one over here on South Heron. It's an old farm. I'd know it if I saw it, but I can't recall the name."
A quick review of the Yellow Pages turned up the name of the place, Crestview, and the exact address.
"Did you go out and pick her up the next day when her car was ready?” asked Auburn.
Greeves rubbed a bristly chin. “That I don't remember. What day was the car ready—day of the week?"
Before Auburn could consult a pocket calendar, Charlene had one out of her purse. “A Saturday."
"I don't work Saturdays. And the guy that does, Slats, ain't here today because he don't work Mondays. But he must have picked her up, unless she got a ride in, or called a cab."
Crestview was, as Greeves had said, an old farm. The house, gabled and turreted, stood on rising ground in the midst of weed-grown fields. The dooryard was an outdoor museum cluttered with decorative iron, a gaggle of cement geese, rusting farm implements, and red clay flowerpots full of dead vegetation.
The woman who answered their knock seemed to fit in perfectly with this scene of early American confusion. She wore an ankle-length wool skirt, a shawl with a fringe, steel-rimmed glasses with lenses the size of quarters, and sandals. “You didn't call, did you?"
AHMM, Sep 2005 Page 1