EQMM, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  It was sometime after one when the elevator down the corridor descended to that level and the doors glided open silently. The visitor moved softly, barely breathing, until he reached the cell with its dimly seen shape wrapped in blankets on the cot. For a moment he merely stared at the shape, then he took out a five-inch knife that flicked open at the touch of a button. He reached through the bars and drove it into the blanketed shape, once, twice—

  Suddenly the corridor was bright as day, and Sid Cromwell dove across the room at the intruder. They rolled over on the floor and Sid knocked the knife free. “I've got him,” he said.

  Susan and Lisa came out of the storeroom where they'd been hiding. “You can be thankful you weren't under those blankets,” Susan told the girl.

  Sid snapped the cuffs on Father Dempsey and raised the stout man to his feet. “I'll clear those life jackets off the cot and you can take their place till morning."

  * * * *

  "Not a shred of evidence,” Susan said a little later, “but it worked."

  "You suspected it was Dempsey. How'd you know?” Sid Cromwell was sitting with Susan and Lisa in his office, drinking coffee till five o'clock, when he knew the captain would be up and eager to hear the good news.

  She laughed. “I should say it was a woman's intuition. The only priest who insisted on wearing his black suit and collar all the time was the one who wasn't a priest at all. But there were a few facts, too. There were no fingerprints on that envelope containing the clergy retirement forms. That told me two things—that the forms were important enough for the killer to have wiped his prints off the envelope before abandoning it, and that they belonged to neither the dead man nor his roommate. Certainly Father Stillwell's prints on an envelope in their drawer wouldn't have been suspicious. No, the killer came on board to swindle the priests, posing as a priest himself. It was his bad luck to start with Father Ullman."

  "Why was that?” Lisa wondered.

  "Because the fax Sid showed me about Ullman said he was originally from Little Rock, the same city Dempsey claimed to be from. Somewhere during their conversation Ullman tripped him up and realized he wasn't from Little Rock, maybe wasn't a priest at all. That was when Dempsey killed him. He had to abandon his con scheme after that, of course, so he left those forms in Ullman's room rather than be caught with them. It might have been better to throw them overboard, but at that point he was afraid even to leave the cabin with them. He had to be very careful after that. He even faked an illness to avoid being photographed with Captain Mason and having his picture on file. That was how I knew he couldn't risk letting Lisa talk to the FBI after what she said this afternoon. He was there when she brought the shirt to Ullman's room, and maybe she'd caught a glimpse of him."

  "You thought up this whole scheme to force his hand?” Sid marveled. “How did you know she could bring it off?"

  Susan smiled and hugged Lisa Mandrake. “I remembered she came to New York to be an actress. This afternoon was her first starring role."

  Copyright (c) 2006 Edward D. Hoch

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  THE PERFECT BEACH by Jeff Williamson

  "This story has been floating around in my mind for close to thirty years, ever since I vacationed in Martinique,” Jeff Williamson told EQMM. “All the physical details—the scenery, the water, the reef, the Atlantic—are as accurate as my memory can make them.” A New York ad man, he has a keen eye for his surroundings!

  Art by Laurie Harden

  * * * *

  The beach was a perfect half-moon, lined with perfectly spaced palm trees, encircling a bay of perfect blue. Behind the beach, on three low hills, was the town, a jumble of perfect white buildings with tin roofs. And behind the town, a half-dozen miles distant, was the perfect green mountain that formed the spine of the island.

  When Geri had first come upon the town, driving down the winding road that led over the mountains from the other side of the island, her reaction had been delight, quickly followed by suspicion and disbelief. In the three days she had been touring the island, following the road that wound up from the capital along the leeward coast, she had passed through many picturesque towns. But none of them had had a decent beach. One was thin and rocky. Another was spoiled by a giant cement dock for a tin-roofed factory that had appeared to have gone out of use. And three other otherwise acceptable beaches were fouled by the presence of large pipes that discharged raw sewage directly into the gentle waves that slid up onto the black, volcanic sand. The crabs that scuttled in between waves to feast on the ordure certainly appreciated it, and the island children that splashed fifty yards away didn't seem to mind, but there was no way she could conceive of even taking a stroll along such water, much less going in. “It is a problem,” agreed a moustachioed official at one of the local post offices, where she had stopped to mail a postcard. “But you know, no one comes to this coast for the beaches. For the beaches you want the south coast. That's where the Club Med is."

  Geri wrinkled her nose—the slim, vaguely aristocratic nose that had always seemed a little out of place in the placid oval of her face. She did want beaches. That was why she had come to the Caribbean. But she most definitely did not want Club Med. The organized activities, the enforced conviviality, the tanned, athletic, oppressively upbeat GOs—it was all so mindless and herdlike, and disturbingly like the small-town society she had fled eleven years ago when she had moved to New York.

  * * * *

  There was an open-air market at the T intersection of the road from the mountains and the road along the coast. Geri stopped the car there and called out to a woman carrying a net marketing sack filled with green oranges:

  "On peut nager la bas?"

  The woman tilted her head and looked puzzled. Geri repeated the question. “One can swim, there, in the bay?"

  The woman shrugged. “If you like."

  "There is no garbage in the water?"

  "Garbage?” Again, the puzzled look.

  Geri hesitated, partly out of concern for offending the woman, in whose town she was, after all, nothing but an intruder, and partly because of the slight difficulty of articulating her question in French.

  "I've been touring the island,” she said. “Some of the other towns, the sewers are right in the middle of the beach."

  "What are you asking?” said the woman, sounding slightly impatient.

  "Do you"—Geri felt her ears heating up with embarrassment over the directness and strangeness of the question—"is there a sewer here on the beach?"

  The woman's eyes narrowed. “The beach is clean,” she said coldly. “Cleaner than anything you'll find in England."

  Geri let out a nervous laugh. “I'm not English. I'm American."

  "That explains a lot."

  The woman turned and walked away, leaving Geri feeling as if she had been hit in the stomach. She was so flustered that she pulled out right in front of a truck coming down the coast road from the north. With a blast on its air horn, the truck swerved just in time to miss Geri's left front fender. In the process it hit one of the poles supporting the canvas canopy over the market. The canopy swayed and collapsed. There were screams and yells and the driver of the truck, a whippet-muscled man in a sleeveless T-shirt, jumped out of the cab, ran over to Geri's car window, and began shouting at her.

  A trio of vendors from the market joined in the truckdriver's denunciation. And in front of Geri, regarding her through the windshield with a look of open contempt, was the woman who'd taken offense about her question regarding the beach.

  "Je suis désolée," said Geri. "Je suis désolée."

  And she began to cry.

  * * * *

  Either because of her tears or the realization that no real damage had been done, the crowd's anger dissipated quickly. Several vendors set about re-erecting the canopy, lashing the cracked pole back together with fishing line. Penitent after his outburst, the truckdriver produced a bottle of rum and a plastic tumbler, into which he poured seve
ral fingers and offered it to her “to soothe the nerves.” Under the circumstances, Geri felt it was impossible to refuse. With trembling hands she downed it like medicine, feeling it burn all the way down her throat. The truckdriver nodded approvingly, then proceeded to knock back a glass of his own.

  "I should not have lost my temper before. I would like to apologize.” He extended his hand.

  Geri took it, finding it firm and strong, although hardly bigger than her own hand. The truckdriver, she realized, was actually a rather small man, an inch or two shorter than herself.

  "It's past lunchtime,” said the truckdriver. “Would you like to eat? The food is not bad at a hotel down the road."

  She looked at him. Was he trying to pick her up? He wasn't bad-looking—early thirties, maybe, fine-boned, light-skinned—but a truckdriver, in a sleeveless T-shirt...

  She would not mind a little fling during the vacation. In fact, in planning the trip she had half-imagined that her solo expedition up the coast, away from the tourist hotels and the pier where the cruise ships docked, might lead to just such an adventure. It might be exactly what she needed to get her past the strange, stale little dead end she had wandered into—career-wise, relationship-wise, everything-wise. It had all been fairly vague, in her musings, how the affair would develop or what the man would look like, but one thing was certain: It involved neither a car accident nor a truckdriver.

  "Oh, thank you,” she said, “but I have to be getting on."

  He shrugged good-naturedly. “Where are you going?"

  "Oh,” she said vaguely, “that way.” She pointed south in the direction of the road that led along the beach.

  "You have a long drive?"

  His questions, and her responses, were trapping her. In spite of everything, she was still hoping to stay in this town. Now, to maintain the integrity of the story she had told to avoid his invitation, she was committing herself to moving on.

  "Not all that far. But I do have to get going."

  He shrugged. “Okay. Have a nice stay."

  As she drove off, he smiled and waved.

  She smiled back, working hard to make it appear sincere.

  The road paralleled the beach. She drove it slowly, aching to pull over and walk barefoot across the powdery sand to the water. Up ahead on the right was a bright-blue building with yellow trim. A sign outside said: “Hotel-Restaurant de l'Anse.” As she approached, she was engulfed in a delicious spicy, lemony smell of cooking. A tree-shaded outdoor dining terrace was next to the hotel. They were doing a good lunch business. A perfect beach, a perfect hotel, and she was moving on. She banged the steering wheel in frustration.

  A mile later, looking back from a hill at the perfect town and bay, she turned back.

  * * * *

  Her truckdriver was seated, eating a salad, when she appeared in the entrance to the dining terrace. He saw her, smiled broadly, and motioned her over to his table. There were a dozen other diners, all islanders, predominantly men. She was conscious of their eyes upon her as she made her way across the cement floor.

  "What happened?” he asked. “Another accident?"

  She laughed—he really did have an appealing droll side. “No. I smelled the cooking when I drove past and I could not get it out of my mind."

  "You made it back just in time. Bébé stops serving at two."

  "Bébé?"

  "The owner.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the back of the terrace.

  There, at a large round table in the corner, sat a massive fat man with a huge moon face. His eyes, in contrast to his chocolatey skin, were a startling bright blue. It was clear how he had gotten the nickname: His limbs and body and head were eerily proportionate to that of a baby, albeit one blown up to three hundred pounds.

  "Wine?” asked the truckdriver.

  "Why not?"

  The truckdriver flagged the waiter. Soon there was another salad and two steaming bowls of bouillabaisse before them. The stew was delicious, thick and spicy and lemony. The cold wine tasted marvelous with it. She drank one glass quickly, then another. He told her that he was from a town just outside the island capital, that he had worked for the trucking company for three years, and before that he had driven a taxi.

  Not too much more was said, but it was okay, and not in the least awkward. She felt relaxed, loose, the first time she had felt that way all vacation. She called for another carafe of wine. The stew made her thirsty, made her sweat. The truckdriver was sweating, too. There were beads of perspiration above his upper lip. It was a finely shaped upper lip, she noticed, with the little divot under the nose very sharply defined. She allowed herself to imaging running her fingertips over that divot to brush the moisture away.

  She smiled at him. He smiled back. Emboldened, she asked:

  "Is it decent, this hotel?"

  "One would imagine. Bébé is serious about what he does."

  "Serious is good, then?"

  "That depends."

  "On what?"

  "Well, at work, it's good to be serious. One should do things properly, with care."

  "As opposed to on vacation?"

  "Yes."

  "When one should be improper, and not careful.” She smiled lazily and allowed her eyes to meet his. He could not fail to understand the innuendo. He smiled back.

  "Excuse me,” she said. “I'm going to see if they have a room."

  * * * *

  They did have a room, a big one, in the front on the second floor, with painted wooden walls, showing slivers of daylight between the slats. Floor-to-ceiling windows—the louvered shutters drawn against the midday sun. A high, soft double bed, a sink in one corner, an inexpensive armoire in the other. The armoire had a mirrored front. She sat on the bed and saw that the mirror reflected her image. How French to have the mirror directed at the bed, she thought. She lay down, stretching out on her side, looking over her shoulder at the reflected hourglass of her waist and hips. She imagined the slim, muscled body of the truckdriver standing over her. Her heart raced deliciously. She was about to have an adventure. A little French island adventure.

  Flushed and even more tipsy than before she had left, she returned to the table.

  "Do you know what I haven't asked you?” she said, giggling.

  "What?"

  "Your name."

  "Etienne Dalhousie."

  "Etienne Dalhousie.” She repeated the name, turning the syllables over in her mouth, tasting their lightness, their Frenchness.

  "And your name?” he asked.

  "Geri Kronhardt."

  "Geri. Is that not a male name?"

  She shook her head. “Different spelling. It's short for GeriAnn."

  "GeriAnn. That is pretty."

  "No, it's not,” she said. She had never liked her name. It was so corn-fed, so everything she had wanted to escape when she had left Indiana. It was a name for women who married their high-school sweethearts and had children and put on impossible amounts of weight.

  "Etienne Dalhousie,” she enthused, slurring the words just slightly, perhaps even charmingly, “now that's a name!"

  He laughed. “If you say so."

  "I do. In the United States it would be the name of—” She groped for something appropriate—"of an art gallery owner!"

  "I don't understand."

  "In the United States we name our truckdrivers Tony or Joe or Sam."

  "There are names for people in certain occupations?"

  She laughed. “No, no, no! It just works out that way. You see, to Americans, Etienne is a very sophisticated name. It's not the sort of name you would expect to find on someone who drives a truck."

  Etienne Dalhousie's face stiffened.

  She was drunk enough to be puzzled at his reaction. What was the problem? It seemed an ordinary enough observation....

  And then she realized what she had said.

  Her cheeks burning, she stammered, “I mean, it's not a question of the value of one—” She groped for the word for “
occupation,” but in the embarrassment of the moment, her French was abandoning her.

  Etienne Dalhousie looked at her, his wide-set brown eyes flat and cool and appraising.

  "I have to be going,” he said finally. “My wife's sister is coming over for dinner and we're going to take the kids to the carnival. I hope you enjoy your vacation."

  * * * *

  Humiliated, she took refuge in the room she had just rented—not even bothering to bring up her bags, just hurrying up the stairs and locking the door behind her and lying down on the bed. Through the louvered shutters she could heard the people talking on the dining terrace. She closed her eyes, but she had drunk too much, and the room seemed to turn; to avoid being sick she had to open them again. After a time, she fell asleep.

  * * * *

  She awoke with a headache, drenched in her own perspiration. She staggered over to the window and pulled open the shutters, drinking in the ocean-scented air that puffed through. The sun was at a slant now, its light pink against the dozen or so puffy clouds that had appeared over the bay. If anything, the scene was more exquisite than ever. Suddenly she couldn't bear to simply look at it any longer. She had to go in. She had to throw herself in that beautiful blue cleansing water.

  She rushed out of the room and down the wooden stairs to the lobby. The clerk nodded to her as she walked past. When she got to her car she realized she had left it unlocked. Her luggage had been stolen.

  The clerk was terribly sorry—shocked, actually. Nothing like this had ever happened before. But what was one to do, except report the theft to the police?

  "I know how y'all feel,” said a voice behind her.

  Geri turned and found herself facing a deeply tanned young man wearing a bathing suit and a cut-off football jersey that said in big block letters: “Prop. LSU Athletic Department."

  The young man smiled amiably. “When I got ripped off in Ocho Rios they cleaned me out good. Luggage, passport, traveler's checks—the works. Only thing I had left was my spear-fishing stuff. ‘Course, spear fishing's why I'm here. If y'all need clothes, I got a few things. Prob'ly fit you. Girl they belonged to was about your size. We kinda went our separate ways."