The Mystery Megapack: 25 Modern and Classic Mystery Stories

by Talley, Marcia

  Before the excited Hindus, intent in their extravagant devotion on extinguishing the flames that enveloped their master, realized what had happened, Roy was in their midst at the block.

  The girl stood in a daze. Roy gripped her arm and pointed to the door. She stumbled. Roy gathered her into his arms.

  He was halfway across the large room when he heard a shout in Hindustani. He looked back and saw Ishan Das Babaji waving an arm toward him. Two Hindu servants ran across the room. Roy spurted and reached the door. He dropped the girl into the outer room. The foremost Hindu was on Roy. Roy reached forward and gripped the man by the neck. His thumbs bit deep into the fellow’s throat. Roy loosened his hold and swung on the man. The man dropped. Roy jumped forward, caught the second Hindu by the shoulders, spun him around and tossed him back into the room. Roy jumped backward into the next room and slammed down the steel panel door.

  The girl stood sobbing beside him. Roy gripped the girl’s hand. They ran to the reception hall. Roy heard loud hammering on the steel door. Apparently the Hindus were experiencing difficulty in opening it.

  There was a delay of a moment at the windowless doors while Roy found the double locks, and they stood outside the house.

  “I’ve got to go back for someone else,” Roy said. “Wait here, outside this door. I won’t be a minute. If anyone comes, run and yell.”

  She nodded tearfully. Roy ran to Margaret’s room. He wasted no time trying to arouse her. Terrific pounding on the steel door echoed through the house. Roy flung a robe around Margaret and carried her downstairs.

  He reached the door and found the girl waiting. They ran to an alley where Roy had left his car. He placed Margaret in the seat, then he and the girl climbed in beside her.

  Roy could not take them to a hotel as they were. He decided to invite the hospitality of a married sister.

  Margaret still lay in a heavy sleep. Roy turned to the girl.

  “My name’s Roy Martin. This is my fiancée, Margaret Miller.”

  “I’m Irma Rollins. And I can’t thank.…”

  “Then why try,” Roy laughed.

  “I’m driving first to my sister’s, then we can go to the police.”

  Roy put the two girls in his sister’s care. He told her as much as he could in two minutes while his sister bound his burnt wrists with ointment-soaked bandages. Roy moved his hands, decided he could drive in a kind of a way, and ran down to his car.

  His route to police headquarters took him close to the brownstone house. A strange fascination tempted him to drive past it.

  When a block away he saw flames leaping high in the sky above the house of Ishan Das Babaji. Fire apparatus stood in the street.

  Roy drove his car as near to the house as was possible. A small crowd stood in a rough circle near the house. Roy left his car and approached the group. He edged his way to the front rank and saw that the object of their attention was six badly charred bodies.

  He turned away from the gruesome spectacle and spoke to an officer on duty there. “Were they caught asleep?”

  “No,” the officer answered. “Some nut of a Hindu art collector lives there. He’s got steel walls to a bunch of the rooms. Scared of burglars. The whole crowd of them was caught in one room where the fire started. A steel door jammed and they were trapped. The fire spread along the floor and gutted the whole place. It had a big start before an alarm was turned in, and the fire department was blocked by the steel walls. They just brought those fellows out now. The floor fell through and the bodies dropped to the basement. There was one woman in another part of the house. She was asleep and went goofy, I guess. She flung open the front door as we got here, put a gun to her head and blew herself off.”

  Roy moved slowly toward his car. He turned for a last look at the brownstone house. Why say anything to the police? He decided to leave that to Irma Rollins. So far as he felt, it could serve no possible good and would result in much unwelcome publicity for Margaret. It seemed poetic justice for the Bengali to be trapped within his own steel walls. Roy thought of the beautiful wife of the mad Ishan Das Babaji. He wondered how much she knew of it all. Well, she knew enough, or she wouldn’t have killed herself at the door, he decided.

  Roy returned to his sister’s home. Margaret had come out of her heavy sleep. Roy, his sister, Margaret, and Irma Rollins sat in a bedroom and discussed the question of going to the police.

  Irma didn’t think much of the idea from the start. She decided it would be a lot more fun to be Margaret’s companion on a round-the-world cruise.

  DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION, by Marcia Talley

  When Harrison keeled over and died I didn’t think I’d marry again, but Mama said, “Life goes on, Marjorie Ann. When you fall off a horse, you have to climb right back on.”

  Given a chance, Mama would have matched me up with one of Harrison’s law partners, right there at South River Country Club as they converged on the roast beef carving station after the funeral, but I have my pride. I waited a respectable year before marrying Stephen, who swept me off my feet with the lean, rawboned, good looks of a Montana rancher, a laid-back wrangler who spoke fluent U.S. Tax Code. The way Stephen handled Harrison’s estate was nothing short of dazzling.

  Stephen was clever with gadgets, too. In his office at home, he had a desktop computer, a laptop, a scanner, three monitors—one as big as an over-the-sofa painting of the Last Supper—two cameras that scanned the room like disembodied eyeballs, and wires that snaked kudzu-like around the table legs. I pretty much kept out until cleaning day when I’d have to run the vacuum and dust his office myself. Theresa refused. The blinking and beeping unnerved her. She was convinced the machines would steal her thoughts, and to tell the truth, I half agreed with her.

  The last thing Stephen needed was another piece of electronics, so for his fortieth birthday, I gave him a fabulous five-course dinner at Northwoods Restaurant and a gift card from American Express. He reached across his crème caramel, gathered up my hand and pressed it to his lips, his green eyes flashing “thank you” in the candlelight. By the way he glanced at his watch, I suspected he wanted to skip the after-dinner glass of Remy Martin and rush straight off to the mall, but, fortunately, it had closed.

  I hoped he’d use the card at Nordstrom or Eddie Bauer, but the next morning Stephen left the house early and was probably waiting at Circuit City when the doors slid open. He came home lugging a box labeled MapMasterIV, and spent the rest of Saturday morning holed up in his office, reading the manual. After lunch, he plopped his new toy onto the dashboard of his pickup and drove off, happy as a clam.

  Sunday morning when I eased into the passenger seat of the BMW, I found Stephen balancing the MapMasterIV on his knees. He plugged its cord into the cigarette lighter socket and jiggled what I took to be an aerial up and down. He leaned sideways, so close I could smell his Drakkar Noir aftershave, adjusted the MapMaster on its bean bag base, positioned the whole shebang on the dashboard, and punched a few buttons. Then he backed carefully out of the driveway, grinning. “Just listen,” he said.

  Drive point two miles west and turn right.

  The MapMaster was female and she spoke in a calm, non-judgmental voice, like the 411 information lady.

  Obediently, Stephen turned right onto Dogwood Lane. “It’ll direct us to church.”

  “You know how to get to church.”

  “Of course I know how to get to church, Marjorie Ann, but it’s interesting to see how the MapMaster will route us.”

  Drive one point seven miles south and turn right.

  Stephen tilted the MapMaster slightly in my direction so I could see the bright yellow display. He tapped the screen with his index finger. “Here’s our route in pink. That’s the interstate over there, in red,” he explained, as if I were a particularly slow and difficult child.

  Continue point five miles and take ramp right.

  Stephen flipped on his turn signal and eased the car onto the interstate. “It’s fantastic technology,” h
e beamed. “Uses the global positioning system. It gloms onto satellites, figures out where you are, then gives you driving directions.” He waved a hand. “It comes pre-programmed with hotels and restaurants, or you can put in a street address.…” His voice trailed off. “I’ve got it programmed for St. Margarets.”

  Drive four point one miles and exit right.

  I watched as Allen Parkway, our usual turnoff, receded in my side view mirror. “Why didn’t you turn back there, Stephen?”

  Stephen stared straight ahead, one hand resting lightly on top of the steering wheel. “I wanted to see where Marilyn would route us.”

  “Marilyn?”

  “MapMaster. M. M. Get it?”

  I rolled my eyes toward heaven. Where in the marriage vows did I promise to cherish a guy who names his toys after dead movie stars? I sighed. “Well, I can understand why, uh, Marilyn might be helpful if you’re driving in a strange city and don’t know where you’re going,” I grumbled. “But if you already know the way, why waste time fooling around?” I swiveled the screen toward me and studied the buttons: Find, Route, Menu.

  “Don’t mess with it, Marjorie Ann! You’ll screw up the settings.”

  “Okay, okay.” I raised both hands in self-defense. “I won’t touch your precious whatzit.” I folded my arms across my chest and settled into my seat, wishing I could turn on the radio, but I knew better. Stephen wouldn’t be able to hear MM over the sound of NPR.

  A few minutes later, MM chirped, In four hundred feet turn right.

  Stephen pulled off the expressway and, following MM’s instructions, wound through a public housing project and an industrial neighborhood until at last, by some miracle, we turned onto a street I recognized and I could see St. Margaret’s steeple directly ahead.

  Arriving at destination on right.

  “Well I’ll be darned,” I said.

  Stephen eased into the parking lot, switched off the ignition and grinned like a schoolboy. “Ain’t technology grand?”

  Even Reverend Nelson’s interminable sermon on life lessons to be learned from the parable of the Prodigal Son didn’t dampen Stephen’s enthusiasm. After the benediction, he hustled me out to the car, not even pausing on the chapel steps to shake the good Reverend’s meaty hand. “Toilet paper,” I reminded my husband somewhat breathlessly. “And milk.”

  Stephen drove the few blocks to our Whole Foods market and waited while I went into the store. When I returned to the parking lot carrying my purchases, Stephen demonstrated how to set a waypoint. “You just drive where you want to go, Marjorie Ann, and press the Mark button.” A number popped up on the screen. “Now you use this rocker pad to rename the waypoint. W … H … O … There. Whole Foods.” Looking over his shoulder, I noticed that Stephen had already set up waypoints for his office, Home Depot, Golds Gym, B&B Yachts and our home, of course. He punched the waypoint labeled “Home” and peeled out of the parking lot, tires squealing.

  Between Whole Foods and Home, the bypass around the construction site on Truman Street threw MM for a loop. Off route. Recalculating.

  “Why it’d do that?” I asked.

  “It’s a new road, Marjorie Ann. Marilyn doesn’t know about it.”

  MM dutifully recalculated and wanted us to go up Route 2 and take the Route 100 by-pass, but Stephen decided not to.

  Off route. Recalculating.

  The woman was far more patient with my husband than I was.

  As soon as possible, make a U-turn, she recommended politely.

  “You could make money,” I mused. “Designing special voices for this thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can already select a language,” I said. “So why not come up with some alternate voice chips,” I suggested, “like the nagging wife. Instead of saying ‘off route, recalculating,’ she’d say, ‘You missed the turn, you idiot! But do you ever listen to me? Nooooh.’”

  The corner of Stephen’s mouth twitched upward.

  “Or,” I continued, warming to my invention. “You could punch in a waypoint for your mother. Then every time you by-passed her house it’s ‘So, Mr. Bigshot. How come you never visit your mother? Make a U-turn. Now!’”

  Stephen joined in, dredging up a Beavis and Butthead voice from somewhere in his reckless youth. “Whoa, Dude, Like there’s a fork in the road. Huh huh huh. Fork. Get it?” He chuckled, a rare event, and turned to study me over the rims of his sunglasses. “You patent that, Marjorie Ann, and we can both retire to the south of France.”

  Truth is, Stephen made excellent money as the head of his own firm. We could retire to the south of France like, any minute, if he wanted, but Stephen preferred to spend his money and his spare time on boating or golfing or off-roading in the Arizona desert. The previous weekend he’d dragged me to the GM dealership to check out a Humvee. As if.

  I squirmed in my seat. MM had selected a route home that didn’t involve a freeway. If she didn’t hurry up, the milk would spoil. “I think you should just go straight up 32,” I said, feeling testy.

  Stephen ignored me.

  “I’ll bet this route is ten minutes longer.”

  “Than?”

  “Than going straight up 32.”

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, Marjorie Ann?”

  “I don’t know, Stephen. I think I lost it back in 1998.”

  MM was feeling testy, too. Off route. Recalculating.

  Stephen slapped his palm against the steering wheel. “Damn!”

  I flinched. “Why’d she say that?”

  “I missed the exit. I was listening to you, Marjorie Anne. Can’t you keep quiet even for a minute?”

  I turned my head and glared out the passenger-side window, my eyes shooting darts into the trees, my mouth clamped shut, feeling glad that Stephen was leaving town the next day for the annual AICPA tech conference in Las Vegas. He was giving a talk on the paperless office. Paperless, ha! Good thing nobody at the AICPA had to empty Stephen’s wastepaper basket or they’d ask for their money back.

  I would have gone along—the Venetian Hotel has lagoons with gondolas floating through it, et mind-blowing cetera—but Mama was having an eyelift and I felt obliged to stay home and hold her hand. So while Stephen spent his days holed up in frigid conference rooms and his nights playing blackjack on The Strip, I spent mine fetching and toting for Mama. I bundled up her newspapers for recycling, cleaned out her refrigerator and scoured the shelves at Blockbuster for Russell Crowe DVDs. She invited me to the film fest, but I think it was because she wanted me to make the popcorn.

  Mid-week, I was taking a break from Mama and getting a pedicure when she rang through on my cell phone. “Can you pick up Elroy in Shady Side?”

  Elroy was Mama’s handyman. His truck had “broke down” and Mama was too hopped up on pain killers to drive down there herself.

  I didn’t feel like going anywhere and told her so.

  “Do you want to pick dead leaves out of my swimming pool, Marjorie Ann? Or mow the lawn?” Without waiting for an answer, Mama started rattling off directions to Elroy’s, but I tuned out about halfway through. I had Elroy’s address. I had Stephen’s MapMaster. Piece of cake.

  Stephen had left the MapMaster locked up in his truck, so when I got home from the beauty parlor, I moved it into the BMW. When I plugged it in, MM politely informed me she was acquiring her satellites, then waited for me to press Find, then Addresses. I used the rocker key to spell out, number by number and letter by letter, Elroy’s address, then pressed Go To.

  MM, bless her little batteries and computer chip heart, got me to Elroy’s and back to Mama’s without a hitch.

  I was backing down her driveway, mere seconds from a clean getaway, when Mama popped out her front door, waving her arms. “Trash bags, Marjorie Ann! I need heavy-duty trash bags. And bug spray!” I waggled my fingers so she’d know I’d heard her, then punched Home Depot into the MapMasterIV.

  I hardly ever go to Home Depot, especially from Mama’s house, so
it didn’t particularly surprise me when MM directed me off the freeway and onto a quiet street in Morningside Heights. I was surprised when she advised me to turn right into a cul-de-sac and absolutely astonished when MM announced that I was arriving at destination, smack dab in front of a cute little Dutch colonial.

  I recognized the house. It belonged to Cheryl, from church. She sang in the choir with Stephen. At the Ferguson wedding they’d sung a duet, “One Hand, One Heart,” and there hadn’t been a dry eye in the house.

  Why had Stephen set a waypoint for Cheryl? I felt dizzy, wondering if all the hours they’d spent practicing “One Hand, One Heart” had escalated into Two Hands, Big Breasts.

  Deeply suspicious, I selected the waypoint Stephen had set up for Gold’s Gym and pushed Go To. MM directed me out of the cul-de-sac, back onto the freeway and through the center of town. Gold’s Gym had long disappeared from my rear-view mirror when MM instructed me to turn into Foxcroft Acres, a new development on the south side of town.

  Arriving at destination on right.

  I eased my foot onto the brake and stared at the name on the mailbox: J. Barton. I recognized that name, too. The “J” stood for Julie and she was Stephen’s personal trainer.

  So, Julie had set up private practice in her home? Helping my husband with his pushups, perhaps? If Stephen hadn’t been in Las Vegas, I would have beaned him with one of his own five-pound, handheld dumbbells.

  I slammed the accelerator to the floor, and peeled out of there. Mama’s trash bags and bug spray would just have to wait.

  The waypoints labeled “T&E” and “Russell” turned out to be just that, the Art Deco building housing the city’s most prominent accounting firm and the office of Russell Herman, Stephen’s attorney, respectively. But when I followed MM’s directions for B&B Yachts, she took me miles out of town, down Route 214 and onto a narrow country road that ended in a long wooden pier.