Mystery Writers of America Presents the Mystery Box

by Mystery Writers Of America Inc.

  “Fredo,” Trent said.

  He didn’t stir.

  Trent went into the kitchen. He took off his basketball shoes and left them by the door. He switched on the radio and turned up the volume. From under the sink, he got Carla’s yellow rubber gloves and put them on. His hands trembled and he took a deep breath. In his mind he saw Ducky walking across that kitchen straight into Fredo’s arms. He saw his mother sitting silent at the table. He heard Miss Snowden’s voice.

  From the top of the stove, he got the frying pan and took it to the bedroom. He listened to Fredo’s snoring. He walked over to the mirror hung on the closet door. With one strong swing, he struck. The glass shattered into long shards.

  Fredo’s breathing never changed.

  Trent chose the longest, sharpest piece of mirror and carried it to the bed. Standing naked in the bathroom, Trent had practiced finding his own femoral artery several nights in a row. Now he studied Fredo’s legs. After all the prison weightlifting, Fredo had no fat on his thighs. His veins and arteries coursed clearly under his hairy olive skin.

  Trent raised the glass shard over his head and plunged it into Fredo’s thigh. The blood shot out like a pit bull released from its cage, angry and eager to be free.

  Fredo awoke, more puzzled than pained. “Wha—? What the fuck?”

  He rose from the bed and took a few steps. Blood pooled around him, thick and hot. It soaked the gray sheets and puddled on the uneven floor. Trent watched from the doorway. There was a lot of blood, but not all six quarts. Not yet.

  The injured leg buckled. Fredo’s eyes met Trent’s. “Call for help!”

  Trent took two steps backward as Fredo crawled toward him and the broken mirror. He threw the piece he had used into the pile of glass on the floor.

  Understanding dawned in Fredo’s glazed eyes. “You little bastard. You did this.” He pressed his thigh with blood-slicked hands.

  Fredo’s healthy young heart pumped blood out of his body, emptying it with great efficiency. His eyelids flickered and Trent thought he might faint. The boy’s fingers unclenched inside the hot rubber gloves.

  But Fredo didn’t faint. With a sudden burst of power, he flung himself at the bedside table. Too late, Trent saw what he’d overlooked: Fredo’s cell phone. Fredo was weak enough now that Trent could have wrestled the phone away, but he couldn’t afford to be found covered in Fredo’s blood. The death had to look like an accident, like Fredo had crashed drunkenly into the mirror. For himself, Trent didn’t care. He would happily have gone to Rikers or even Attica if it meant getting rid of Fredo. But he couldn’t leave Ducky. She couldn’t protect herself from whatever guy was bound to follow Fredo. As Fredo clawed for the phone from the front, Trent knocked the whole nightstand over from behind.

  The phone fell to the floor. As Fredo scrambled toward it, Trent kicked it cleanly into the hall.

  Now Trent was trapped by the spreading tide of blood. Once Fredo was dead, Trent could pick his way carefully out of the room. But he couldn’t get between Fredo and the phone, not without Fredo grabbing at him with his bloody hands. He looked at the digital clock glowing green on the floor. 2:37. Fredo had been bleeding for four minutes. How much longer would it take?

  Trent and Fredo heard the sound at the same moment: the click of a key turning in the front door lock.

  Ducky’s sneakers pounded down the hall. “Trent? Trent? The power’s out at Holy Savior and we all had to leave. They sent me home with Elena, but her mom said to see if you were here.”

  Fredo dragged himself slowly toward the hall. Trent could see him open his mouth and draw breath.

  The apartment door slammed shut as Ducky sailed past the bedroom, heading for the kitchen. “Trent, where are you? Can I have a snack?”

  Trent felt his throat swell with panic. Ducky couldn’t see this. But how could he stop her?

  Ducky had made it all the way to the living room and was doubling back.

  “Trent? Tren—” She stopped outside the bedroom door. Her gaze rested first on the trickle of blood flowing steadily across the sloping floor. Curious, she squinted into the dim interior and saw Fredo prone, propped up on one elbow. Raising her head, she caught sight of her brother.

  “Stay right there, Ducky.” Trent tried to keep his voice calm, but it felt like Ducky was on the far side of Van Nostrand Avenue separated from him by six lanes of speeding buses and trucks.

  “Phone,” Fredo wheezed. “Ducky, get my phone.”

  Ducky glanced down. The phone lay a few inches from her pink sneaker. Then she looked back at Fredo.

  “No!” Trent shouted. “Leave it, Ducky. Run into the living room. He can’t follow you. He’s too hurt.”

  But Ducky wasn’t paying attention to her brother. Her eyes, pale and bottomless, stared unblinkingly at Fredo.

  “Bring me the phone. Now.”

  Trent saw his sister bite her lower lip, the way she did when she was trying hard to color inside the lines. Slowly she crouched until her right hand closed over the phone.

  Ducky rose. Stepping forward with her left foot, winding up with her right arm, she threw the phone overhand.

  When all three heard the distant crash, Ducky gave a little nod. She faced her brother, ignoring what lay between them.

  “I’m going back to Elena’s, Trent. I’ll tell her mom you weren’t at home.”

  DEAR MR. QUEEN

  BY JOSEPH GOODRICH

  March 2, 1977

  I gave Mrs. Zaborowski my story today, and she read it over the lunch hour. She thinks I ought to submit it somewhere. There are a few spelling mistakes and some other things I should fix, but then I’ll send it to EQMM. Who knows what might happen?

  March 4, 1977

  Ellery Queen, Editor

  Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

  380 Lexington Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Dear Mr. Queen:

  Enclosed you’ll find “The Ubiquitous Fairchild,” my latest mystery story. I hope you’ll like it. I’ve enclosed a SASE for your response.

  Many thanks,

  Christopher Kenilworth

  1203 Macmillan Street

  Manderton, Minn 56031

  P.S. I’ve just finished reading The Wrightsville Murders. I asked for it as a special present for my fourteenth birthday, which was last month. I had to write to a bookstore in Minneapolis to find it. It’s brilliant. When will your next novel be published? I know your fans are waiting!

  April 25, 1977

  It is now two o’clock in the morning. I’m listening to Hobbs’ House on WCCO and drinking a cup of tea with milk. I shouldn’t be up this late—tomorrow’s a school day—but I can’t get to sleep. Too full of thoughts.

  Played “I Am a Rock” over and over again this evening. It keeps going through my mind. It seems so bitter, so calmly despairing. “I have my books and my poetry to protect me. I am alone.” Will that be me someday, an encrusted, friendless old man? I hope not.

  A rejection letter was waiting for me when I got home from play practice. (I’m essaying the role of Dr. Howard Fersig, an evil doctor, in The Skeleton Walks. It’s a great part. Aunt Kathy’s helping me memorize my lines. We open on May 13th.) I really thought “The Ubiquitous Fairchild” was a good story. I guess I’ll try again. I know I can do it.

  Uncle Wes’s car just pulled in. He’s back really late tonight.

  I must try to sleep.

  April 26, 1977

  A few thoughts, waiting for the bus. Should I join Mensa? Isaac Asimov is vice-president. Is my IQ in the top 2% of America’s? I could send in the six dollars and see if I qualify, after taking the test they’ll send me. All I need is a little self-confidence.

  I’ve had an idea for a story. A murder story. Inspired by something that happened last night. There’s the bus—more later.

  After Supper

  I am being driven insane. By my classes. I’ve only got one I truly enjoy (English, with Mrs. Zaborowski). There are a few others that
I can bear (I won’t name them) and one that is downright intolerable: Drafting.

  I just wasn’t meant to hunch over a desk and draw geometric trifles on paper. I’m not a person who naturally can draw, use rulers and compasses. I am not fast at picking up mechanical techniques. I am fine in theory but dreadful in execution. It’s torture. Mr. Calvin tries to help, but it’s just no good. There’s only one more month left in drafting, but guess what my next class is?

  Woodworking.

  They’re trying to kill me.

  Later

  Here’s the background for that story idea.

  Uncle Wes and Aunt Kathy have been living with us—me and my grandmother—for the last three months. Their house sold faster than expected, so they’re staying here until construction on their new home is finished.

  I like Aunt Kathy. She’s soft and nervous and nearsighted and always interested in what I write.

  Uncle Wes is a big man with a big gut and big gold teeth and a big square head covered with graying hair he combs over and over in the mirror before he goes out in the evening. He was in the Philippines during World War II and saw things he doesn’t want to talk about. He scares me. Aunt Kathy’s frightened of him, too. I can tell by the way she flinches whenever he calls for her. They fight sometimes—or, rather, he yells at her. He yells at her, then slams out of the house. She doesn’t say a word. I find his behavior loathsome. I’m pretty sure that once, and maybe even more than once, he’s hit her. And that is unforgivable. I swear that I will never be mean to any woman at any time under any circumstances. We must have standards.

  Uncle Wes came home very late last night. He’s a pal of the man who runs the A&W stand by the lake, and sometimes he brings back root beer and hamburgers, so I waited for him, just in case.

  After a minute or two of silence, I went to the kitchen. No one was there.

  I looked out the window. His Olds 88 was parked in the driveway, but Uncle Wes was nowhere to be seen.

  I went down the stairs to the back porch, opened the screen door, and peered out.

  Still no sign of him.

  I was about to step back into the house when a flickering light appeared across the street. The flame of a cigarette lighter fluttered in the breezy darkness.

  Uncle Wes was lighting Ava Templehoff’s cigarette.

  They were under the elm tree on the front lawn of the Templehoff house.

  But, I asked myself, where was Ava’s husband, Don?

  That’s when I had the idea for a new story. What if Uncle Wes and Ava Templehoff were having an affair? And what if Don wouldn’t give Ava a divorce? And what if they had to kill Don so they could be together? How would they do it? It’d have to look natural. It’d have to look like an accident….

  The Templehoffs’ house is at the end of the block, right next to the splintery old bridge that crosses Whiskey Ditch. Uncle Wes and Ava could ply Don with drinks and then push him down the slope into the water. Or lead him down there, hit him on the head, and drown him. Or—

  The scrabble of paws sounded on the bridge. Gretchen, the Templehoffs’ blind eleven-year-old dachshund, waddled into view. Leash in hand, huffing and puffing, Don waddled along behind Gretchen. Don is in lamentable physical condition. He smokes too much and eats too much. He wears a copper bracelet on each wrist, which he says helps his arthritis, but I doubt it. Whenever he comes over for some of Grandma’s coffee cake and a chat, his joints hurt so much he can barely get up to leave.

  … Or it could be a heart attack. They could get him mad and he’d drop dead. Then who’d ever know it was murder?

  I can do something with this. I’ll give it some serious thought in homeroom and see if I can’t work out the details. It could be a real Jack Ritchie kind of story.

  I even have a title for it: “No Hamburgers Tonight.”

  Even Later

  Uncle Wes arrived home at 2:29 a.m. Ava T. waited for him on her front porch. A pattern is forming. And I’m going to figure out just what that pattern is….

  April 27, 1977

  Horrible day in school. That’s all I’ll say.

  I will never forget the cruelty of others.

  I’ll never forgive it, either.

  To make matters worse, there was an accident with the typewriter this evening. When I’d finished transcribing some notes for my story, I set the typewriter on the bed so I could sweep the eraser crumbs off my desk. I went out to the kitchen to get a cup of tea. When I came back, without thinking, I sat down on the edge of the bed—and that’s when it happened. The typewriter slipped off the bed and hit the linoleum with a sickening metallic chunk. It’s broken.

  I loved that typewriter.

  A bad end to a bad day.

  Uncle Wes arrived home at 1:36 a.m. He parked his car, walked across the street, and went into the Templehoffs’ garage through the side door. My mind is working frenetically to weave circumstance into the stuff of fiction.

  April 28, 1977

  A note on my methodology might be in order. When I hear the Olds 88 roll in, I go up to the attic and watch from the window at the head of the stairs—I can see the driveway, the street, and the Templehoffs’ house quite easily from there.

  Uncle Wes pulled into the driveway around 12:56 a.m. and went straight to the Templehoffs’ garage.

  I’ve figured out how they’ll kill him. The character based on Don is crazy about his little blind dog. His wife accidentally lets the dog out, although it’s far from any kind of accident, and the man drops dead from worry and overexertion. A perfect murder.

  April 29, 1977

  Waiting for my allergy shot. Four-thirty in the afternoon. Today Mrs. Zaborowski read to us from Notes to Myself, by Hugh Prather. I’ll look for a copy the next time we go to the B. Dalton’s in Sioux Falls. It was beautiful and moving, and it really made me think.

  I always seem to be looking for an idol, a hero. I revere Isaac Asimov, Alfred Hitchcock, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, and Groucho Marx. I don’t drift around without one, but I like a hero. I suppose I admire the person I want to be. I want to match their achievements and make a name for myself in the world.

  Play practice from six to nine tonight. I intend to work on my story afterward if I’m not too tired. Mr. Christiansen told us we have to be off-book by Monday. I’m going to ask Kevin to help me with my lines during study hall.

  Dilemma: I enjoy both writing and acting. What if I had to choose between the two disciplines? Which would it be? I think I would have to choose writing, though the rewards of the theatre are immediate and vastly pleasurable. There’s something deeper about writing, I feel, something that calls to the deepest part of me.

  It’s just after midnight, so it’s technically Saturday, April 30th. The CBS Radio Mystery Theater has just finished: “Good night, and pleasant dreams…” The reception from WBBM in Chicago was okay tonight. Not a lot of static, and I was able to hear the whole show. I hate it when sun spots, for instance, mess up the radio waves and I can’t listen to E. G. Marshall and company. That’s a show I’d like to write for. Himan Brown is a genius.

  Uncle Wes isn’t back yet. I’m worn out and I don’t know how much longer I can last. I think I’ll listen to Allan McFee’s show on the CBC. I hope I can stay awake….

  It’s almost five o’clock in the morning as I take pen in hand. I’m exhausted, but I have to get this down before I crash into sleep—if I can sleep at all.

  The facts. Concentrate on the facts. Write it all down.

  About forty minutes ago, I awoke to the sound of a car door closing. I reached my perch in the attic window just in time to see Uncle Wes help Ava out of the Olds 88. Arm in arm they walked unsteadily across the lawn, stumbled at the curb, then staggered through the streetlamp’s amber, leaf-dappled light to the darkness of the Templehoff lawn. After a minute or two, Ava left the shadow of the tree and Uncle Wes lurched back across the street to his car, got a bottle from the trunk, and followed her.

  It looked like that was it for
the night, so I went down the stairs, headed for bed. I was getting a glass of milk from the refrigerator when it happened.

  Someone—a woman—screamed.

  And a gun went off.

  And went off again.

  And again.

  Then silence.

  But not for long.

  May 3, 1977

  The Daily Globe reports that the authorities view the events of the night of April 30th as a murder-suicide. An ailing Don Templehoff discovered that his wife, Ava, was involved in an illicit relationship with their friend and neighbor Wesley Lannen. Catching them in a compromising situation, he shot them both to death and then killed himself. Templehoff had a history of mental and physical problems dating back to his service in the Aleutians during the Second World War. He’d suffered a breakdown and been sent back to the States with an honorable discharge, a pension, and a Purple Heart.

  The best part of the story wasn’t printed in the paper, though. I’ve been keeping my ears open, and I’ve learned a few things. It’s amazing what people will say in front of you if you pretend you’re not interested.

  Don met Ava at the Veterans’ Hospital in Minneapolis in the summer of 1967. He was being treated for his joint problems. She was there visiting a former high school boyfriend—Wesley Lannen.

  Ava quickly married Don, who’d come into a lot of money after the death of his mother. At her suggestion, Don sold his house in a suburb of Minneapolis and moved to Manderton… where Wesley was living with his wife, Kathy. The affair between Uncle Wes and Ava Templehoff began shortly after.

  That was back in 1967. Which means their affair had been going on for ten years.

  I will never understand people.

  Don and Ava Templehoff were buried today. Uncle Wes will be buried tomorrow. But not in the same cemetery.