EQMM, February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Eric's paunchy face sagged like a pricked balloon.

  "And I had to fork out for Marce's share of the trip.” He smiled ruefully. “Forgot her checkbook."

  "What about Howard?” Vi was pleased how normal her question seemed.

  "Had a migraine, poor bugger.” Eric stood up and followed her inside. “Do you know that bloke's a woman specialist?"

  Vi paused. “Explain?"

  Eric was packing away his knives. “He's a period doctor."

  Vi thought for a moment. “Do you mean a periodontist?"

  "Yeah.” He cursed as he nicked his thumb and sucked on it. “Something to do with oral bejesus or some such."

  Vi smiled. So Howard was a periodontist. That at least explained the unnaturally white condition of the Smythe-Fitzwillies’ teeth.

  * * * *

  They ordered fish and chips at a little outdoor cafe on the wharf. Eric sucked noisily on the neck of a cold stubbie while the meal was prepared. Vi sipped chilled white wine.

  She'd changed into her one good frock—again with a sensible high collar, against the heat. And how glad she was of the choice now.

  She played one hand across her throat and secretly fingered her pearl as Eric, ignoring her, trailed his eyes around the couples seated at the tables around them.

  He grimaced as one couple, with a brace of noisy youngsters, battled to distribute garlic bread with any sort of order.

  But then Eric had never had much patience with children.

  "What do you want with a pack of brats, woman?" That was how he'd announced to her that he'd decided they didn't want children. Vi remembered the moment well. It was the first time she'd felt the tight swelling in her throat, the gnawing pain that buying today's pearl seemed to have assuaged.

  Then, as it happened, he'd been unable to father a child anyway.

  His long-standing run of casual affairs was proof enough of that.

  Eric loved getting back to nature. Bird-watching was his passion! And not just the feathered kind.

  Vi's irritation with Eric had grown over the years. Layer upon layer.

  Like nacre slowly swelling into a cool, hard core.

  Like pearl.

  Except this creation wasn't beautiful.

  It was ugly.

  Vi winced as Eric belched.

  Damned ugly!

  She took another sip of wine, and began to plot. Stonefish. Cone shells. Crocs. Tides. Sharks. Snakes. Stingers.

  She took a bigger sip. Then a gulp. The list was endless. She'd send Eric back to nature, all right.

  But timing was everything.

  She'd have to be careful.

  And then, as it happened, the matter was taken entirely out of her hands.

  "Oh jolly Jove! Not again!" It was Howard, wending his way through the tables, with Marce shuffling her high heels behind him. “We were just getting a takeaway, and spotted you."

  He stooped to kiss Vi, and pumped the hand Eric offered.

  "Got your head back on?” Eric didn't stand up.

  "My...? Oh!” Howard tapped his temple. “Yes, thanks to a Panadeine Forte and a good lie-down."

  Vi watched Howard's face. No trace of guilt.

  She turned her attention to Marcia, who was unusually quiet.

  Like a time bomb.

  "So, the fish were too slick,” she said, by way of conversation.

  "Yes.” Marcia fluttered her eyelash extensions. “But at least I got back in time to do a little serious shopping."

  She raised her glittering, ring-encrusted hand and dragged it across the vast expanse of tanned bare skin revealed by her strapless dress.

  Vi's gaze distractedly followed the hand.

  Then she let out an involuntary cry.

  Against Marcia's bronzed throat glowed a luminous white oval.

  "You bought yourself a pearl!” Vi gasped.

  She drained the last of her wine, dragged out her reading glasses, and made a pretence of admiring the gem.

  The pendant was uncannily similar to her own.

  Except that Marcia's pearl was white.

  It was flawless.

  And it was bigger.

  Much bigger.

  * * * *

  Walkers found the remains of a woman's body tied to a pylon under a disused jetty.

  Hermit crabs had rendered the corpse unrecognisable. But the coroner estimated she'd been there at least three days.

  The body was naked.

  Except for a champagne pearl pendant on a gold band.

  Tight around the neck.

  Which was just as well, because it proved impossible to identify the corpse from dental records.

  The skull was missing its upper and lower dentures.

  * * * *

  The police picked up Eric at a roadblock not far from Tunnel Creek.

  "We're concerned about the whereabouts of your wife, Mr. Geeson,” the burly sergeant said.

  "What's there to be concerned about?!” Eric snapped. “The cow left me in Broome."

  "I think you'd better come with us.” Two constables had already extracted Eric from the cruiser and were frogmarching him towards a paddy wagon. “A body's been found."

  The sergeant paused.

  "I regret to have to inform you that the tentative identification puts it as being your good wife."

  He cleared his throat before continuing.

  "Eric Winston Geeson, I am arresting you for the murder of Virginia Jean Geeson. You have the right to remain silent..."

  * * * *

  Jessamine Harcourt, chief assistant at the Pearl Emporium, was a pivotal witness at Eric's trial.

  "Yes, I distinctly remember that pearl.” Her serious eyes grew round as she accepted a forensic bag containing the pearl she'd sold Vi. “I remember it particularly, because I'd been saving to buy it myself."

  She peered more closely. “Yes. It had an almost imperceptible flaw across the lower left back."

  A member of the prosecuting team rushed forward and handed the judge and jurors copies of a blown-up photograph. The tiny imperfection was clearly visible.

  "I pointed it out to the customer, and I told her if a pearl has good luster then small flaws like this go unnoticed,” Miss Harcourt went on. “She made some remark about it being a bit like people. Or marriage."

  The prosecuting lawyer let the observation settle on the jury before prompting, “Is there anything else about the buyer that you particularly remember?"

  "Well, there was one r-remark...” Jessamine Harcourt stammered. “But I don't know if..."

  "Go on."

  "Well, like I said, I'd almost saved enough to buy this pearl, see, when the lady came in.” The girl dabbed at her eyes with a pink tissue and took a long, sobbing breath. “Lovely she was, sort of unaffected. I was tempted to try to persuade her to buy something else, but she seemed so set."

  There was a short silence while the girl regained her composure. She blew her nose, then turned to face the judge.

  "I shall never, never forget what she said when she decided to buy. ‘My husband will kill me,’ she said.” The principal witness tilted her chin at the jury, and repeated, clearly and slowly, “'My husband will kill me.’”

  "Hrrmmph, er, Miss, er...” The judge scrabbled for a piece of paper. “Miss Harcourt. Thank you. Your evidence has been most ... er ... enlightening."

  But Jess Harcourt hadn't finished. Not quite.

  "I was just wondering, Your Honor, after the trial, does evidence like this go into the police auction?"

  * * * *

  Howard and Vi, who by then had assumed the identities Charles and Ginny Chadwick, were sailing off Lombok when they heard about Eric's arrest.

  The move north had seemed sensible, as had the name changes, given the string of fraud convictions that had been about to catch up with Howard Smythe-Fitzwillie, not his real name.

  And Vi had always fancied doing something a little more adventurous than her mother had managed with the perilous Vir
ginia.

  She sipped on a lime juice and watched Charles capably scale the mast. He moved with the fluid grace of a natural sailor, a grace she'd identified at their first meeting.

  The offer to crew this clipper into international waters had come just at the right time.

  But then Vi always knew that timing was everything.

  And Howard—or Charles—was one clever cookie. Even if the nearest he'd ever come to being a periodontist was a short stint as a technician in a denture clinic.

  After all, it had been his idea to remove Marcia's dentures after tying her to that pylon. On a rapidly rising spring tide.

  And Vi's to swap pearls.

  They'd both agreed that there was absolutely nothing to be gained by leaving one shred of traceable evidence at the scene.

  Nor in wasting the spoils.

  "Ahoy, there! Fancy helping trim the mainsail?"

  Vi tilted her gaze skywards as Howard called down to her.

  "Coming.” She squinted into the eye of the sun.

  She began climbing the mast towards him.

  He watched her face split in a familiar reptilian grin that matched the dazzling—if ostentatious—white pearl throbbing against the rapidly rising pulse in her sun-bronzed throat.

  (c)2006 by Cheryl Rogers

  DISGUISED AS A NORMAL PERSON by Ricardo Adolfo

  Portuguese writer Ricardo Adolfo has called many places home: Born in Luanda, he was raised on the outskirts of Lisbon, Portugal, and at present lives and works in Amsterdam. In 2003, Publicacoes D. Quixote brought out his first collection of short stories, “Os chouricos sao todos para assar” (All Chorizos Are To Be Roasted). His first novel, “Mize", was published in 2006.

  Translated from the Portuguese by Cara Goodman.

  Costa had worked as a security guard in the Reboleira supermarket for over two years. The job was everything he had ever wanted: He was making a good living at something that offered adventure, excitement, and the opportunity to develop his detective skills. Costa had always believed he had a sixth sense for detecting things. When he went out with his friends, it was almost always he who found the way back home. On three such oc-casions, he'd correctly guessed the names of girls they met in bars. And if there was one thing he could do, it was register details: There was never a brawl that Costa didn't first spot from a distance. By the time chairs and glasses started flying, he was already outside the bar with his beer still intact, reminding his friends that he had told them so. Being a detective was an old dream of his, one that he still fed with movies. If he had been born in America, who knows if he might not have turned out to be a real detective, but in Reboleira the closest thing was being a security guard at the supermarket.

  The job was divided into shifts. For ten days at a time he would work as a uniformed guard and all he had to do was check and seal the bags customers brought with them into the store. Other days, he would work disguised as a normal person in order to catch those customers who didn't want to pay, or who deliberately stole. This week was disguise week, and Costa was walking though the meat section when he sensed something odd about a certain yellow-haired woman. To an amateur, the woman might go completely unnoticed, but Costa had seen plenty of movies and knew when someone was getting ready to do something bad. Costa believed that there were two kinds of people in the world: the good and the bad. And the bad ones, well, you could tell by their faces that they were bad. It was difficult to explain, but it was something in the way they walked, the look in their eyes ... Yes, the look in their eyes was very important. And that yellow-haired woman had a strange look in her eyes.

  As soon as he noticed a possible robbery, Costa would stay right where he was. If necessary, he would endure hours of the chase until the customer got up to the registers. Even once the customer got to the registers, there were ways to tell if he or she was paying for everything or not. Making a mental list of everything the person was buying was one of the first things Costa would do. Then, it was simply a matter of remembering the list once the customer was up at the register and checking to see if everything was there.

  The yellow-haired woman was still wandering around the meat section, quite indecisive and oblivious to Costa's scrutiny. First she looked at the pork chops, then it seemed like she was going to get drumsticks, but didn't. Costa could just about guess by now. She was going to get herself some veal. Premium grade, as they say. In her cart, the woman already had a box of detergent—the most expensive kind—a variety pack of juices, rye bread, and some packages of personal hygiene items. The woman was dressed as though she didn't need to steal, but Costa knew that those were the worst sort. The ones who didn't look like they needed to steal, and then because no one suspected them ... well, there you have it. Her loose clothes were also a bit strange. The woman, though in her forties, seemed elegant, or at least she didn't seem inelegant—and such women rarely walked around in baggy clothing. Obviously, something strange was going on there. The most likely explanation was that the loose clothes were for hiding various products. From what he could tell, there was plenty of room underneath her shirt to hide a couple of steaks, one or two chocolate bars, and, if the woman was even thinner than she looked, perhaps a bottle of good perfume.

  "Security Guard Costa to the main register, Security Guard Costa to the main register.” The announcement over the loudspeaker shot through the supermarket like a gigantic arm and squeezed Costa's heart until his breath stopped. He'd been discovered. Panic. Now what? If the yellow-haired woman realized what was going on, she would no longer try to steal. Even though no one was watching him, Costa somehow believed that everyone had figured him out. The disguise that he had spent so long on, that he had created with every last detail in mind, ruined thanks to one announcement over the loudspeaker. It was prohibited to do that to an undercover security guard. Didn't anyone know how to do their job anymore? He was about to crack a case.

  He couldn't stay there any longer, but he also couldn't go up to the main register since that would be the proof all the customers had been waiting for. The customers’ stares weren't obvious, but he could still feel them. Yes, that loudspeaker announcement had been like a giant arrow pointing right at his head. Like a neon sign at one of those restaurants. Without knowing just how to slip away, he ran behind a stack of sale cookies. Buy One, Get One and a Half read the lettering on the sign.

  Any hope for a promotion to section manager had just been killed. A section manager had to be completely unrecognizable. Maybe someone was plotting against him, trying to bring him down. There was a lot of competition in the supermarket world, and jealousy, too. It was all about sticking it to the other guy. There was no camaraderie or cooperation, just trying to trash the next guy so you could be promoted. And Costa knew that the other security guards had already noticed that he had a sixth sense and that one of these days he was going to be promoted to section manager. Right after that would come division chief. One of the most desirable positions in the supermarket world. Now it all made sense. Carla, one of the register girls that he sometimes met out back at the end of his shift for a few kisses, had even told him that she had heard some of the other security guards talking about bringing him down. Why? Jealousy. Pure jealousy. Just because he could see things in a way others couldn't. It wasn't his fault.

  "Security Guard Costa to the main register, Security Guard Costa to the main register,” the loudspeaker announcement rang again from the paneled ceiling. Furious, Costa ran for the front. He cruised past Home Improvement, rounded the bakery corner, darted down the cleaning-products aisle, and jumped out at Register 34. He landed with his feet together and just one hand out to steady himself and then sprinted for the main register. “You're not going to get me! You're not going to get me!” yelled Costa as he arrived at the main register. “It's not allowed! A security guard who's undercover can't be paged by the loudspeaker,” he yelled even louder. “It's against the rules."

  Maybe it was despair, the death of his dream, or perhaps it
was watching the yellow-haired woman passing by the registers towards the exit without it even looking like she was carrying a package of steaks in her grocery bag. Right then, Costa swore revenge. They were going to pay for this. And before anyone could say anything, Costa yanked out his Reboleira supermarket security badge and threw it to the floor with all the strength a relatively weak man could possibly muster.

  "If that's how you want it, that's how you're gonna get it!” he shouted as he stormed out. He finally understood. If they wouldn't let him be a detective, he was going to be a thief. He could even put that strange look in his eyes, just like the bad people.

  (c) 2003 by Ricardo Adolfo and Publicacoes Dom Quixote; translation (c)2006 by Cara Goodman

  TOO HIGH ON THE HOG by Harry Hopkinson

  My artery's blocked

  And my breathin's inhibited,

  My heart has been clocked

  And my insides exhibited.

  My waistline is double

  And I'm in big trouble

  From eatin’ too high on the hog.

  * * * *

  The IRS got

  Both the Jag and the limousine,

  The ranch and the yacht

  And the house with the mezzanine.

  Now, my woman's gone south

  And I'm down at the mouth

  From eatin’ too high on the hog.

  * * * *

  High livin’ was takin'

  More than I was makin'.

  I won't go Jamaican again.

  I'm now on the Big Rock,

  In number-nine cell block,

  Which they say they will unlock,

  But when?

  * * * *

  Put a bundle in stocks

  With some funds I solicited.

  When they went on the rocks,

  Then the FBI visited.

  Should have taken it slow

  With the other guy's dough,

  But I wanted to put on the dog.

  I was eatin’ too high on the hog.

  * * * *

  (c)2006 by Harry Hopkinson

  THE JURY BOX by Jon L. Breen

  Involving sleuths of different times in the same case is a difficult and rarely attempted feat. In December 1996, reviewing Ed Gorman's Hawk Moon, which teamed present-day FBI profiler Robert Payne with early-twentieth-century policewoman Anna Tolan, the only earlier novel-length example I could think of was Beyond the Grave (1986), featuring Marcia Muller's contemporary museum cura-tor Elena Oliverez and Bill Pronzini's 1880s Wild-West sleuth Quincannon. But I overlooked Ellery Queen's 1966 movie novelization A Study in Terror, in which Ellery draws his own conclusions from Dr. Watson's account of the 1880s duel of Sherlock Holmes and Jack the Ripper. Now another writer has combined the Baker Street giant with her own contemporary series sleuth.