EQMM, July 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

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  Dell Magazines

  www.dellmagazines.com

  Copyright ©2009 by Dell Magazines

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  Cover art: William George

  CONTENTS

  Fiction: PREMINGER'S GOLD by Loren D. Estleman

  Passport to Crime: WHAT YOU INHERIT FROM YOUR FATHERS by Andrea C. Busch

  Reviews: THE JURY BOX by Jon L. Breen

  Fiction: MY HUSBAND'S WIFE by Charles Ardai

  Department of First Stories: BIAS by Chris Muessig

  Fiction: THE MAN WHO DIDN'T PLAY GOLF by Simon Brett

  Reviews: BLOG BYTES by Bill Crider

  Fiction: THURSTON by R. T. Smith

  Fiction: WHAT THE MONSTER SAW by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Fiction: AWAKE by David Dean

  Fiction: A WASTE OF DEATH by Donald Olson

  Fiction: A HOLLYWOOD ENDING by Melodie Johnson Howe

  Fiction: THE BRASS COMPASS by C. J. Harper

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  Fiction: PREMINGER'S GOLD by Loren D. Estleman

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  Art by Allen Davis

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  Loren D. Estleman's latest novel, The Branch and the Scaffold (April/Forge), is based on a real-life judge and the criminals he hanged in the Old West. Mr. Estleman often brings real people into his fictional narratives, most notably in this series starring “film detective” Valentino. He writes in so many genres, and so elegantly, that it would be too restrictive to classify him as a crime writer. His novel American Detective was one of only 7 mystery novels to make PW's “top 150 novels of 2007."

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  Northern Michigan wouldn't be mistaken for Southern California, despite the presence of a rocky shoreline that might have stood in for the Pacific Coast Highway in a student film with no travel budget.

  The differences were apparent as Valentino drove his rental car along reddish main streets paved with asphalt and slag from extinct iron mines. Video stores had taken the place of boarded-up neighborhood theaters for the entertainment of locals, and chain motels had begun to push out rustic log bungalows, but the villages were refreshingly free of McDonald's and Wal-Marts, and when he got out with his bags, strangers on the street, dressed for the most part in ear-flapped caps and Mackinaws—the women as well as the men—greeted him in passing as if they were old friends.

  "I may retire here in twenty or thirty years,” he told Kyle Broadhead from the telephone in his room; his cell couldn't get a signal among all those pines and weathered granite.

  His mentor's chuckle reached him all the way from his faculty office in Los Angeles. “Have you ever even owned a snow shovel?"

  "I was born and raised in Indiana. I think I can handle a few flakes."

  "'A few flakes’ is what they call summer up there. You'll be on your way back home as soon as they finish de-icing the plane."

  It was early autumn and the weather was quite pleasant; but Valentino had heard stories of winter residents tunneling through roof-high drifts to get about, so he chose not to strain the university budget in a long-distance argument. “I'm meeting Sigurson tomorrow for breakfast. He sounds friendly on the phone. I think this will be a worthwhile trip."

  "Sigurson. Bet he talks like those characters in Fargo."

  As a matter of fact, Leonard Sigurson had spoken with that lilting Scandinavian accent that the dialect coaches at all the studios claimed was vanishing from the northern regions of the U.S. and Canada.

  Valentino didn't address the remark. Broadhead was always right and reacted immodestly whenever his opinion was confirmed. “Goodbye, Kyle. I'm turning in soon."

  "So early? What is it there, eight o'clock in the evening?"

  "Nine. Most of the state's on Eastern time. Anyway, I had layovers in Denver and Chicago, then a puddle-jumper and a long drive. The sun comes up here same time as back home."

  "Just don't come back with plaid poisoning.” Broadhead hung up.

  The contact had suggested an hour unknown on the West Coast, but Valentino fell asleep quickly with Lake Superior pounding not far away and arose at sunrise, lagged but alert. He put himself together and walked through chill air to the diner.

  "I keep telling the owner he should knock down that wall and expand the place,” his waitress said. “We've got more customers than tables every day of the week."

  Valentino grunted and made room on the checked cloth for a large oval plate of bacon and eggs. The crisp climate made him hungry, and not inclined to lecture on the value of popular culture. The wall was the reason this beanery in a barely accessible region of the American Midwest had so many customers.

  Famished though he was, after the waitress left he paused a moment longer to contemplate the signatures on the wall of his booth: Otto Preminger, James Stewart, Lee Remick, George C. Scott, Ben Gazzara, and of course Robert Traver, whose experience and imagination had started it all.

  In 1958—well before that young lady's time—Preminger, the most gifted and difficult Austrian film director since Erich von Stroheim, had led his troupe to Michigan's wild, wind-lashed Upper Peninsula to film Anatomy of a Murder, based on John D. Voelker's courtroom suspense novel inspired by his career as an attorney and judge, published under the Traver pseudonym. The result, daring for its era, was one of the three or four best legal dramas ever produced. Stewart had reestablished his star power as the quirky, canny country lawyer attempting to clear his client of a murder charge, and Remick and Gazzara, relative unknowns at the time of casting, had been catapulted into the ranks of the Hollywood elite.

  Aware of good things coming their way, all had agreed to provide their autographs at the request of the diner's owner, whose hearty fare and friendly service had helped sustain them through the rigorous weeks of shooting. Included was the immortal Duke Ellington, who had written the score and appeared in a cameo onscreen. Destroying those artifacts might not necessarily harm tourism—that harsh and beautiful country drew hunters, boaters, anglers, and even would-be Ernest Hemingways eager to fish the waters and hike the trails their idol had known so well—but the loss to cinephiles would be as great as the destruction of Da Vinci's Last Supper.

  The visitor's empty stomach tore him at last from his meditation. The food was as delicious as it was unhealthy. But as he swabbed up the remnants with whole-wheat toast and drenched his broken inner clock with black coffee from a thick mug, he began to wonder
if he'd been stood up. Every time the street door opened, tinkling the bell mounted on the frame above it, he looked up, only to return his attention to his plate when the newcomer joined friends at a table or tramped straight to the counter and straddled a stool. They let no more than a curious glance stray toward the unfamiliar figure in the booth. They probably dismissed him as just another cinema buff who'd requested the seat.

  When the waitress refilled his mug, he asked if she knew Leonard Sigurson.

  "Ziggy? Who doesn't? He'll bend your ear talking about his big movie career."

  "I was hoping he would, but he's late."

  "I think his watch ran down years ago and he never got around to rewinding it. He rolls out of bed with the first shotgun blast in the woods and eats when his belly tells him to. Some nights he bangs on the door after closing and we have to fire the griddle back up so he doesn't go to bed hungry. Ziggy, he's a character.” She carried the pot to another table.

  When the last of the morning crowd had paid up and gone and Valentino was testing his bladder with more coffee, he sensed that the small staff was growing impatient to clear the tables for lunch. Sigurson came in then.

  Valentino didn't recognize his contact at first. He'd spent some time studying the two scenes in Anatomy of a Murder in which Sigurson had appeared, but the old man in unseasonable shorts, polo shirt, and sailor's cap didn't bear much resemblance to that long-ago background extra. He glanced around, spotted the lone diner, and limped his way, hand outstretched.

  "Keep your seat,” he said when Valentino started to rise. “I just got my hip replaced and it hurts to look at you youngsters popping up and down like a lake perch.” His hand was as strong as his features, bony and hawklike under sagging skin. “Cora! Over easy and burnt to a crisp."

  "Ziggy, you don't think I know by now how you take ‘em?"

  The waitress sounded friendly, but she glared at Valentino, as if it was his fault the booth was unavailable for busing.

  The old man peered at the card Valentino gave him. He didn't appear to need reading glasses. “'Film detective.’ I thought you said you was an archaeologist."

  "Archivist. It's because people make that mistake I call myself a detective. Were you sitting here when that wall was signed?"

  "No, this here was the grownups’ table. I was over there.” He pointed at a table in the corner. The worn oilcloth covering might have been the same one he'd sat in front of back then.

  A scheduling glitch all those years ago was what had brought Valentino halfway across the country. Sigurson's two scenes were shot weeks apart instead of back-to-back, so he'd been paid throughout the company's time on location. He'd filled the idle days taking home movies of the cast and crew. UCLA's Film Preservation Program, tagged to remaster Anatomy for a special DVD release, had sent its crack archivist to upper Michigan to secure that amateur footage for a reasonable price to include on a second disc.

  "I'd of went nuts without that little Bell and Howell,” the old man said. “That guy Preminger spent half a day setting up and the other half putting the same ten lines on film over and over. Inefficient. Kid here in town made a whole science-fiction picture in a week last summer."

  "Preminger was a perfectionist."

  "A nasty feller's what he was. When he wasn't trying to shove that pretty little thing Lee Remick into the sack he was cussing at her and everybody else. The colonel was the only one he couldn't bully."

  "The colonel?"

  "Jimmy Stewart. He was in the Air Force, you know, flew twenty missions over Germany. I guess the Kraut figured he'd bomb him if he didn't back off, slobbered all over him when he found out he didn't scare. He even laid off of Lee when the colonel was around. Sweet little thing, Lee. I bawled like a baby when I heard she'd died. Only fifty-five she was."

  "What was Ben Gazzara like?"

  "Okay. Sort of standoffish. He was one of them Method actors. You couldn't talk about the weather and such with him—you know, carry on a normal conversation. He was playing his part all the time, on and off the set."

  That checked with the Gazzara Valentino had interviewed; a polite man, serious about his craft. The subject had been the forthcoming debut on video of Run for Your Life, the series that had made the actor a TV star, but as the only surviving member of Anatomy's principal cast he could not escape probing questions about the production. He'd mentioned the home movie in passing. A great deal of research on Valentino's part had gone into identifying Sigurson as the man behind the camera and locating him, but elderly people often exaggerated their past exploits for the entertainment of a young audience. It was possible he'd come all this way over a couple of hundred frames of anonymous figures shot at a distance.

  "You were a bold young man,” he said. “Most amateurs would be too timid to approach a credited player with a camera."

  Sigurson's eggs arrived, charred and smoking. He chewed and grinned, blackened bits showing between teeth that showed far less wear than his baggy, humorous face. “I knew you'd think I was some old crank with a tall tale to sell. That's why I brung these."

  Valentino watched him take a plastic photo wallet from the cargo pocket of his shorts and spread its contents like playing cards on the table between them. They were digital stills in full color of Stewart, Remick, Gazzara, and Arthur O'Connell, the character specialist who'd nailed the role of Stewart's boozy associate, in costume and looking relaxed and casual—except Gazzara, who looked just like the simmering young man on trial for his life he'd played in the film. Surreptitious-looking shots caught the shaven-headed Otto Preminger with his mouth open, shouting at some hapless member of the talent or crew.

  "After you called I had my son drive me to Marquette and paid a photo place to put the film on disc. Did you know they can print stuff on paper easier that way? I sure didn't. You got an honest face, mister, but I'll just hang on to the film and the disc till we have us a deal. Keep the prints; I got a second set for free."

  Valentino thanked him, shuffled the stills into a stack, and slid them back into the wallet. His hand shook slightly. From the evidence, Sigurson had been a gifted amateur, framing his shots with skill and maintaining focus. Snaring previously unknown footage intimately connected with a classic film was as exciting to an archivist as discovering a third part to Henry IV would be to a Shakespearean scholar.

  He willed himself to appear calm. The department budget was tight, and he lived in fear of exhausting it on something tempting only to be approached soon after by someone in possession of the entire work of Theda Bara, or some other grail as holy. He couldn't seem eager if he wanted a bargain.

  "These are impressive, but I'll have to screen the original before I make an offer, if I decide to. What are you asking?"

  "Not a penny."

  "I'm sorry?” Obviously his ears hadn't popped yet.

  Sigurson swallowed egg. “Too steep?"

  Cora, the waitress, was taking an inordinate amount of time clearing and wiping down the table nearest the booth. Valentino lowered his voice. “Is there someplace we can talk in private?"

  "Son, this here's the Upper Peninsula. Ain't no place you can't."

  They paid for their meals and went out, strolling an empty sidewalk where the parking meters were placed against buildings so as not to obstruct snow plows in winter. The nip in the air had lost some of its edge, but the visitor was grateful for the flannel lining of his windbreaker. He couldn't understand why his companion's exposed arms and legs weren't turning blue.

  "Ever hear of Little Bohemia?” Sigurson asked.

  "No."

  "How about John Dillinger, ever hear of him?"

  "Oh, yes!” He wondered if the old man's mind was wandering.

  "Back in ‘thirty-four—before my time, by the way—he and his gang slipped right out from under the FBI's nose when agents had them surrounded in the Little Bohemia lodge, across the line in Wisconsin. Dillinger split off from the rest, worked his way down to Detroit, then back west. Lots of people know t
hat. What they don't know, most of ‘em, is when he left that lodge he brung along a sack of gold bullion he stole from a bank in Indiana.

  "Well, bullion's heavy, so he hid it to keep it from slowing him down, meaning to come back for it later. Only he didn't get around to it, because a couple of months later the FBI got lucky finally and gunned him down outside a picture show in Chicago."

  "Who told you about the gold?” Valentino was humoring him. Sooner or later even the most determined babblers returned to the subject.

  "Everybody around here back then knew the story, even if most of ‘em thought it was hooey. There's always talk of buried treasure wherever a bandit's been. That man Preminger bought into it. What's more, he got the gold. Excuse me, son. I'm still breaking in this new hip."

  They'd come to a little patch of park, where Sigurson lowered himself onto a painted bench. Valentino joined him. He was eager to hear the rest, now; implausible tales were meat and mead to a movie buff.

  "We had an old town character in them days, called Shorty. I think Short was his real name. Had a face looked like the map of the Upper Peninsula. I think that's why Preminger hired him as an extra, to make his picture look authentic. You can see him in a crowd scene outside the courthouse.

  "Shorty was an old-time bootlegger, had a reputation for helping folks hide out who was on the run from the law, places where he used to stash liquor. He got drunk one day and told me he ought to give up the stuff because it made him talk too much. He said he'd talked himself out of a fortune when he told Preminger he'd harbored Dillinger for a few days after Little Bohemia and Dillinger trusted him to hold his gold till he came back. The Kraut egged him on by pretending he was interested in buying the story from him for a picture."

  "Don't tell me he told him where he hid it."

  Sigurson nodded. “In the shaft of an iron mine that shut down in ‘twenty-eight when the ore run out. He kept a still there from ‘thirty to ‘thirty-three."