The Big Book of Female Detectives

by The Big Book of Female Detectives (retail) (epub)

  Suddenly a light burst in the sky and it would be easily seen from Hell Hollow road. Nobody who knew beans would have thought it was the Spooklight but, by golly, it was an odd, unexplained flash in the night sky. Then came another flash and another.

  Shouts erupted. “Look, look, there it is.”

  “Quick. This way.”

  “Over the hill.”

  * * *

  —

  If Millard had been there, she would have hugged him. He’d taken lumps of the powdered magnesium, wrapped them in net (Gretchen had found an old dress of her mom’s and cut off the net petticoat), and added a string wick they’d dipped in one of the gas tins. He lighted the wick and used his slingshot to toss the soon-to-explode packet high in the air.

  Gretchen heard Millard crashing back through the woods. He just had enough time to climb the oak when the soldiers swarmed into the clearing. Gretchen slithered from shadow to shadow, briefly shining the flash high on the tins. The reflected light quivered oddly high in the branches. She made her circuit, then slipped beneath a thick pine and lay on her stomach to watch.

  Two more flares shone in the sky and then three in succession blazed right in front of the open shed doors.

  * * *

  —

  The local Gazette used headlines as big as the Invasion of Sicily in the Friday morning edition.

  ARMY UNIT FINDS

  BLACK MARKET GAS

  AT SISTER SUE MINE

  Army authorities revealed today that unexplained light flashing in the sky led a patrol to a cache of stolen gasoline…

  * * *

  —

  It was the talk of the town. Five days later, when Deputy Sheriff Euel Carter was arrested, the local breakfast crowd was fascinated to hear from Mr. Hudson who heard it from someone who heard it on the post, “You know how Euel always did them damfool crossword puzzles. Well,” Mr. Hudson leaned across the table, “seems he left a newspaper right there in the storage shed and the puzzle was all filled out in his handwriting. Joe Bob Terrell from the Gazette recognized his handwriting, said he’d seen it a million times in arrest records. The newspaper had Euel’s fingerprints all over it and they found his prints on the gas tins. They traced the tins to Camp Crowder and they checked the prints of everybody in the motor pool and found some from this sergeant and his were on half the tins and on the boards that sealed up that shack by the Sister Sue. They got ’em dead to rights.”

  Gretchen poured more coffee and smiled. At lunch the nice officer—she’d known he would come that night—had left her a big tip. He’d looked at her, almost asked a question, then shook his head. She could go to Thompson’s for a cherry fausfade in a little while and tell Millard everything she’d heard. It was too bad they couldn’t tell everyone how clever Millard had been with the magnesium. But that was okay. What really mattered was the gas. Now maybe there’d be enough for Jimmy and Mike.

  DETECTIVE: MARIAN LARCH

  MAKING LEMONADE

  Barbara Paul

  SOME PEOPLE TURN TO WRITING because it’s fun, or because they feel unsuited to any other type of employment, or because they are driven to it by a passionate desire to tell stories, unable to stop unleashing the creativity that is wildly screaming to be let loose. For Barbara Jeanne Paul (1931– ), who was working as a teacher, the reason she turned to producing fiction, she claimed, is that she simply could not stand the notion of reading another undergraduate paper.

  After an early career writing science fiction, beginning with An Exercise for Madmen (1978), followed by three more sci-fi books in the next three years, she switched to mystery novels and quickly became established in that genre.

  Her first mystery novel, The Fourth Wall (1979), reflected her affection for the theater. Her second, Liars and Tyrants and People Who Turn Blue (1980), combined science fiction with mystery. As a test to determine how fast a full-length novel could be written, she wrote, in two weeks, Your Eyelids Are Growing Heavy (1981), about a woman who deduces that she has been hypnotized when a large piece of her life has vanished from her memory. Paul wrote three historical mysteries featuring the great opera singer Enrico Caruso: A Cadenza for Caruso (1984), Prima Donna at Large (1985), and A Chorus of Detectives (1987). Her series protagonist, Marian Larch of the New York Police Department, starred in seven novels, beginning with The Renewable Virgin (1984). Paul’s 1985 novel Kill Fee was the inspiration for the 1990 made-for-television movie titled Murder C.O.D., in which a Chicago cop is being blackmailed for having an extramarital affair. When he and his wife move to Portland, Oregon, the blackmailer follows. It starred Patrick Duffy and William Devane.

  “Making Lemonade” was originally published in Sisters in Crime 4, edited by Marilyn Wallace (New York, Berkley, 1991).

  Making Lemonade

  BARBARA PAUL

  THE DEAD MAN WAS JAPANESE, dressed in a Ralph Lauren suit that had amazingly little blood on it. Mid-forties, dapper even in death. His second-floor apartment reflected an almost stereotypical love of order, of serenity, of delicate objects, at the same time avoiding any chauvinism in its decoration: the clean-lined sofa was a German design, the lighting fixtures were from Sweden. But the ambience remained unquestionably Japanese—the expanse of open floor space, the lack of clutter, the exact positioning of one perfect bowl on the reflecting surface of a table. The normally bull-voiced uniformed cops who’d invaded the dead man’s sanctuary spoke in muted tones, unconsciously adjusting to their environment; designed to soothe, the apartment could also intimidate. Detective Sergeant Marian Larch knelt on the floor and examined the three small bullet holes in the dead man’s chest. What a waste, she thought.

  His name was Tatsuya Nakamoto, and he was with Sony Corporation; that much she knew. A wedding ring said there was a Mrs. Nakamoto. The owner of the ground-floor apartment directly under Nakamoto’s had called the police; he’d heard the shots and had even caught a glimpse of the killer from the back as he ran out of the building. Thin, Caucasian, brown hair, under six feet. Scruffy-looking. Only about a million people in New York who fit that description.

  A pane in a glass door leading to the second-floor balcony had been broken from the outside. Next to the balcony grew an elm tree, graceful and decorative, and, apparently, climbable. The building itself was on Second Avenue in the East Village; fully renovated and almost lavishly decorated, it was a four-story home to four upscale families who were doing their part to help gentrify the part of Manhattan that fell within the city’s Ninth Precinct. Three blocks away were slums; five blocks away were the project houses. Haves unwittingly daring the have-nots to prey upon them; the have-nots frequently taking the dare.

  “A doper,” said Foley. “Thinks the place is empty. Shinnies up that tree to grab what he can carry in one trip and out again. But Nakamoto surprises him. The doper pops him up close three times with his little twenty-two and hightails it outta here.”

  Marian nodded; her partner probably had it right. No billfold on the body…but an expensive watch and ring were left; the killer must be new at this. She went out onto the balcony. No leaves, no twigs or little pieces of bark. She reached up and touched the nearest branch of the elm; two leaves detached themselves and drifted to her feet. Marian went back in and gestured to one of the uniformed officers; she asked him to go down and see if he could find any signs that the tree had been climbed. Then if he couldn’t, find out if the tree could be climbed.

  “You want me to climb the tree.”

  “That’s right.”

  “How far?”

  “All the way, if you can.”

  The officer didn’t quite roll his eyes as he went out. Marian followed him to the door and checked the lock. No sign of a forced entry. She went into the kitchen looking for a back door and found one; the lock had not been forced there either. Using a handkerchief she carried for the purpose, she grasped
the base of the knob and opened the door; on the other side was a landing in the service stairway.

  On the landing she spotted a white plastic card of the size meant to be carried in a billfold. Marian picked it up carefully by the edges. On one side was a calendar in print so tiny as to be virtually unreadable. On the other side were the name, address, and phone number of a local pharmacy. 24-Hr Delivery, it said. Marian put the card in a plastic evidence bag.

  “Shit!” came Foley’s voice from the living room. The only environment that ever intimidated Foley was the precinct captain’s office. Marian went back in and found him bending over the body. “He’s still wearing his wristwatch. And a ring.”

  Glad you noticed, Marian thought.

  “We got a amateur here,” her partner complained. “This one’s gonna be a bitch.”

  “Amateurs make mistakes.” She held up the plastic bag.

  Foley turned his head sideways to read the print. “Markham’s Pharmacy? Where’d you find it?”

  “Service stairway outside the back door. Technically off the premises? But close enough.”

  Foley snorted. “It fell out of a package being delivered. And the delivery coulda been for another floor.”

  “True. But how does a card ‘fall out’ of a package? We’ll have to check if Markham’s Pharmacy made any deliveries here today.”

  Foley grunted assent. “And we better find out the last time that stairway was cleaned.”

  “Good idea.” Marian wandered through the rest of the apartment. The bedroom was spacious and masculine-looking, with separate dressing rooms and closets. With her handkerchief she opened one of the closets. About three-fourths of the space was taken up with men’s suits and shirts; the rest was filled with kimonos. So Nakamoto dressed the part when he was out in the world, but at home he liked the old ways. Marian opened the other closet and found just the opposite proportion: Mrs. Nakamoto had a few suits and dresses, but kimonos made up the bulk of her wardrobe. You didn’t have to be a genius to figure that one out.

  Marian found no other beds in the apartment; evidently the Nakamotos never entertained overnight guests. She did find a separate dining room, a home office complete with computer and filing cabinets, a room filled with electronic equipment in which a large-screen Sony dominated, several sitting/thinking/whatever rooms; one looked like a small art gallery. And everywhere the decor was pronouncedly masculine. Or maybe it only looks that way to me, Marian thought. The difference could be one of culture, not of gender.

  She went back into the living room where Foley stood with his hands in his pockets, scowling at the body on the floor. They were limited in what they could do until the Crime Scene Unit arrived; the CSU almost always beat the detectives to the scene, but not today. The officer Marian had sent down to check the elm tree came back and said, “Sergeant Larch? There was leaf litter all over the ground, but I couldn’t see any marks on the bark or broken-off twigs or anything like that. Didn’t look to me as if anybody’d been climbing that tree.”

  “Did you climb it yourself?”

  “Tried to, but the damned thing started bending over before I got all the way up to the second-floor balcony. I thought it was going to break. The only one who could climb that tree is a monkey or maybe a small child.”

  Marian cast an appraising eye over the officer.

  “Hundred seventy-six pounds,” he said.

  She gave him a smile and a thank-you and turned back to Foley. “The glass in the balcony door was broken to make it look as if that’s the way the killer got in. But he came in through one of the doors.”

  Foley scowled. “Nakamoto let him in.”

  “Or he had a key.”

  “Either way, it’s still no professional hit. The killer’s a first-timer.”

  Marian thought so too. “The Crime Scene Unit’s here,” she said.

  * * *

  —

  The team of Larch and Foley split up for the time being, a procedure they opted for as frequently as possible. Foley stayed to interview the neighbors and check with the medical examiner; Marian went to break the news to Mrs. Nakamoto. After dusting for prints and taking pictures, the Crime Scene Unit had found two things of interest. One was Nakamoto’s billfold in a bureau drawer; it held over four hundred dollars. The other was an appointment calendar that said Mrs. Nakamoto would be at the American Red Cross headquarters on Amsterdam Avenue the entire day. “I’ll stop off at Markham’s Pharmacy on the way back,” Marian said to her partner. “See if you can find out when the service stairs were last cleaned.”

  Foley grunted the grunt that Marian had learned meant Okay. She took the car and headed across town to the West Side Highway, which she followed uptown and then cut over to Amsterdam. She got lucky and found an illegal parking place.

  Inside the Red Cross offices, a man named Greg Seaver told her Mrs. Nakamoto was in a fund-raising committee meeting. “May I help you? Or would you like to wait?”

  Marian showed him her badge. “Sergeant Larch, NYPD. It can’t wait, Mr. Seaver. I need to talk to her now.”

  Either her tone of voice or her badge convinced him. “I’ll get her. Wait here, please.”

  “We’ll need a private place to talk.”

  “You can use my office.”

  He returned immediately with a small Japanese woman wearing American clothing easily and even with flair. She had her hair cut short and was carefully made up—model-pretty, in fact. “Mieko, this is Sergeant Larch of the police.” When he’d finished his half an introduction, Seaver withdrew from his office and left them alone.

  “Yes?” Mieko Nakamoto said with that strong upward lilt that made the word sound like a challenge even though it was not intended as such.

  Marian had her sit down, and as gently as possible she explained what the police had found in the Nakamoto apartment. She told the new widow that her husband had almost surely died immediately and did not suffer. Mrs. Nakamoto’s eyes grew bigger as she listened while her mouth seemed to grow smaller. In her lap her small-boned hands clasped and unclasped themselves. Finally after an extended silence she stood up and excused herself. Through the glass wall of the office Marian watched her walking rigidly toward the ladies’ room. She made no move to follow; the woman needed privacy.

  Greg Seaver was hovering anxiously outside the office. With a sigh Marian motioned him in and told him that Tatsuya Nakamoto had been murdered.

  “Oh my god,” he gasped. “What a dreadful—oh, poor Mieko! Murdered? Who…?”

  “It’s too early yet,” Marian said. “Mr. Seaver, did you know Mr. Nakamoto?”

  “I met him once. A very formal, traditional man. I don’t think he entirely approved of Mieko’s working here. Damn—what a godawful thing to happen!”

  “He didn’t approve?”

  “Well, he asked me if I thought it was gracious to importune strangers for money,” Seaver said with an annoyed laugh. “Gracious! But he’d disapprove of any place Mieko worked. I remember thinking at the time that he probably wanted her to stay at home and wear a kimono. I know he looked offended when I addressed her by her first name.”

  “Does Mrs. Nakamoto have a salaried position here?”

  “Oh no, she does volunteer work. Mieko has a real talent for fund-raising—we’re lucky to have her.”

  “I’d have thought the Red Cross used professional fund-raisers.”

  “National Headquarters does. We’re just the local chapter here.”

  “Ah. Tell me, what time did Mrs. Nakamoto come in today?”

  He gave her a strange look. “Is it true, you always suspect the spouse first? Mieko came in around ten this morning, and she’s been here ever since.” They both looked at their watches; it was 11:50 A.M. “Sergeant, if Mr. Nakamoto was killed any time after ten this morning, there’s no way Mieko could have done it.”

  Mar
ian didn’t mention that the police had been called around nine-thirty. Mrs. Nakamoto came back, minus much of her make-up; she’d probably washed her face with cold water. Greg Seaver tried to tell her how sorry he was, but it was an awkward moment. He obviously wanted to put an arm around her and comfort her, but Mrs. Nakamoto’s entire demeanor said Don’t-Touch-Me. Finally at a look from Marian, Seaver edged out and left them alone again.

  “Where is my husband?” Mrs. Nakamoto asked in a high voice.

  Marian explained about the medical examiner and the law’s requirement that autopsies be performed in all cases of violent death. In response to Marian’s questions, Mrs. Nakamoto said her husband had been working at home today, in preparation for a meeting tomorrow morning. No, his working at home was not unusual; he had done it several times before. No, he was not expecting anyone, as far as she knew. The widow could have been an automaton, answering precisely and briefly, volunteering nothing. Marian said she’d like her to check the apartment to see if anything was stolen.

  “Yes. I will do that now.” Without another word, Mrs. Nakamoto rose and walked out. Marian watched her go, stiff-backed, taking small steps, head not moving. She marched past Greg Seaver without a glance.

  Marian walked over to him and asked, “Is it the bad news, or is she always that withdrawn?”

  He sighed. “Most of the time she’s friendly in a shy sort of way, but sometimes she’s exactly the way you saw her. With Mieko, it’s hard to know what’s going on.”

  It is indeed, Marian agreed.

  * * *

  —

  It was close to four before Marian and Foley got together in the Precinct Detectives Unit room on the second floor of the Ninth Precinct stationhouse. Foley reported that the neighbors had nothing to tell him about the Nakamotos; the Japanese couple were quiet people who kept to themselves. They’d bought the apartment about two years ago and were on courteous speaking terms with the other three families in the building. And that was it.