Between the Dark and the Daylight

by Ed Gorman

  “Was that the only point the Zederbergs disagreed on?”

  “Why don’t we have a drink together, and I’ll tell you everything you want to hear?”

  God. “Like whether Mrs. Zederberg had any … male friends?”

  “Aside from me, you mean?”

  Consistency is not always a virtue, especially when it hints at a motive for killing the woman’s husband. But all Tess said was, “Yes.”

  “How about that drink first?”

  “Actually, I’d rather start by holding hands.”

  Odabashian seemed stunned. “You would?”

  “Yes. If you were inside this camper, I need to take elimination prints from your fingers.”

  “That’s not exactly what I had in mind.”

  “Tough luck. You can hop over here now, or you can cool your heels for a night or two in jail until a judge gets around to making you cooperate.”

  Pete Odabashian gave Tess a sour look. “Somehow, you’re not so cute anymore.”

  Coming through the CSU door at headquarters, Detective Lieutenant Kyle Hayes said to Tess, “The vic’s wallet was gone, but the stash of cash he kept in that library — and the wife kept in the kitchen — are both still there.”

  Suggesting a killer/robber not familiar with the household’s habits. Then Tess looked up from logging in the evidence baggies used at the crime scene. Hayes was carrying two folders of different colors, neither of them ones the department used.

  Tess said, “What are those?”

  “Personnel files. From the vic’s former business and the wife’s job at the museum. She’s a docent.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Cassidy, you have to get out more. A ‘docent’ is like a tour guide.”

  Tess kept her temper. “Thanks.”

  Hayes laid the folders on the counter next to her. “The family’d like to have the decedent in the ground by nightfall.”

  “What’s the rush?”

  “Religious thing. The ME knows about it, and he’s putting Zederberg at the top of his list. Though, if it was up to the wife, we’d be looking at burning, not planting.”

  “Cremation?”

  “Only the son’s gotten pretty devout over the years, and he said it was also a religious thing to bury, and the funeral director’s agreeing — naturally, since he’ll get more money on the deal.”

  Tess was trying to think all that through when Hayes said, “I’m gonna get some coffee. Be back in ten to see how you’re doing.”

  No “Can I get you something, too?” Tess said, “I’ll be here.”

  As soon as Hayes closed the door behind him, Tess moved over to the folders. She was a little surprised that the owner of a company had a personnel file on himself. Opening “Zederberg, Martin,” Tess read about his selling of medical supplies, some correspondence on him in turn selling his company, and some more letters about retirement options.

  Then she turned to “Zederberg, Nanette.” Given date of birth, she was a good twenty years younger than her husband, as Odabashian had told Tess. And not much employment history: nurse’s aide, restaurant hostess, “docent” at the museum.

  Luckily, Tess was back at her logging by the seven-minute mark, because Hayes burst through the door early. And empty-handed.

  “Where’s your coffee?”

  “Cassidy, we’ve got a weapon.”

  “The weapon?”

  “Well, that’s something we’re just gonna have to find out, aren’t we?”

  Silently, Tess said good-bye to witnessing the birth of her first niece or nephew.

  The uniform assigned by Dispatch to investigate a bloody hatchet had enough sense to leave it on the ground.

  Hayes said to her, “Any identification on the caller?”

  “I can check with Dispatch, Lieutenant, but they didn’t tell me squat on that.”

  Tess lowered her duffle bag to a patch of grass maybe ten feet removed from the weapon. She had a gut feeling the tipper stayed anonymous, though she also knew that 911 had caller ID, so they at least could trace the number.

  Probably to an equally anonymous pay phone.

  “Cassidy, you want to process this thing?”

  Looking forward to it all day. “Yessir.”

  Tess bent down, trying to picture how the hatchet got there. “We’re about three miles from the Zederbergs’ house, right?”

  “Ballpark. And in the direction the widow saw her ‘hulking man’ walking.”

  There were two huge prints, probably thumbs, in blood on the handle, but any others seemed too smudged to matter. “I don’t remember Mrs. Zederberg saying anything about him carrying a bloody hatchet.”

  “You didn’t interview the woman. She was upset, likely to miss stuff. Especially since she just ‘glanced’ at the guy.”

  “Only other people could have seen him, even focus on a big man acting odd. Why would he bring the murder weapon this far?”

  “The guy could have it in a bag. Or he could just be a crazy.”

  “But why not wipe the thing off? Or hide it, even bury it?”

  Hayes and the uniform both laughed.

  Tess said, “What?”

  “Cassidy,” the lieutenant still chuckling, “you are a mite slow. ‘Bury the hatchet?’”

  “Oh.”

  At her computer, Tess cursed. After taking preservative close-up photos of the hatchet’s handle, she’d lifted both latents perfectly from the surface. However, neither of them was in the state or federal databases.

  And there were no prints in the house that didn’t belong to one of the three Zederbergs, and none in the RV beyond theirs and those of the neighbor, Pete Odabashian.

  Tess ran all four people through the computer. Zip also, which meant nobody had a criminal record, served in the military, or applied for any of a dozen kinds of licenses or permits.

  The good news was that Tess had done all she could on the case, so now there was nothing official keeping her from going to the hospital.

  “It’s a boy,” the new papa said, beaming in the gleaming corridor, a piece of cardboard in his hand.

  Tess smiled at her brother-in-law. “That’s terrific. How’s Joan doing?”

  “Great, just great. Still a little groggy, but only because they had to do a Caesarian section.”

  Meaning general anesthetic, so that made sense.

  Arthur held up the cardboard. “And isn’t this just the cutest thing?”

  Tess glanced at “the cutest thing,” then began to stare at it, and finally read the label. “What does ‘I/M-Print’ mean?”

  He told her.

  Tess nodded once. Twice. Three times. “Arthur, what happens when a married couple goes to sell their house?”

  “What happens?”

  “Taxwise,” said Tess Cassidy, “and keep it simple.”

  She had to give Detective Lieutenant Kyle Hayes credit. He was willing to do what Tess asked.

  They were both in the Zederbergs’ living room with Nanette, son Steven, and neighbor Pete Odabashian.

  The widow checked her watch and spoke with an edge to her tone. “Okay, my husband’s funeral starts half an hour from now. What’s this about?”

  Hayes said, “Cassidy?”

  Tess had already drawn and released a deep breath. “I want to take prints of all your … big toes.”

  “Our what?” Odabashian said.

  “We found impressions on the handle of a hatchet, and the blood on its blade matches the decedent’s DNA.”

  The son said, “So?”

  “The prints are either the thumbs of a ‘hulking man,’ like the one your stepmother reported to Officer Rollings, or the big toes of somebody else.”

  Mrs. Zederberg said, “I don’t understand.”

  Tess looked at her. “I got the idea when I visited my sister in the maternity ward a few hours ago. The hospital takes an ‘I/M-Print,’ meaning ‘Infant/Mother-Print.’ Or ‘prints.’ The mother’s thumb and the infant’s foot. So ther
e’s no question about somebody going home with the wrong baby.”

  Steven Zederberg said, “I repeat myself, but so?”

  “The prints on the murder weapon weren’t in any of our databases. So if the ‘hulking man’ wasn’t the source of those prints, maybe one of you is.”

  Odabashian said, “Should I be calling a lawyer?”

  Hayes — God bless him — chimed in, “Just let Cassidy here take prints of your big toes, okay?”

  Nanette Zederberg sighed, but began to take off her shoes.

  “This is absurd,” from her stepson, who nevertheless began to do the same.

  Odabashian said, “Not until I talk to an attorney.”

  Now Hayes put some steel into his voice. “You can cooperate, too, or sit in a cell until a judge tells you to comply.”

  Tess thought, Just what I already told Odabashian about his fingerprints. “I’ll only be a minute, and this way you’ll avoid any legal fees.”

  Odabashian gave her another sour look, but he bent to untie his shoelaces.

  When all three were barefoot, Tess “rolled” their big toes. However, when she compared their prints to her latents from the hatchet, there was no match.

  “So,” said David Zederberg, wiping the ink off his toes with a cloth from Tess’s duffle, “all this was a waste of time.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Hayes shaking his head.

  Tess decided on one last try, using what her brother-in-law had told her at the hospital. “Mr. Zederberg, as an accountant, what happens when a married couple sells their house?”

  “I explained all that to the lieutenant.”

  “Can you explain it again?”

  A sigh, much like his stepmother’s. “So long as they lived in a principal residence long enough, the net equity from the transaction is protected from taxes up to a certain point. And Dad said he didn’t care about the surplus profit. He’d rather pay the capital gains hit on it so he could start his new life as,” a tilt of the head toward the driveway, “an RV nomad.”

  Tess said, “And if one of the spouses dies before the sale?”

  “Then the survivor gets a ‘stepped-up basis,’ all the way to the fair-market value of the deceased spouse’s half of the property as of the date of death, thereby saving sometimes hundreds of thousands in capital ….” The son looked from Tess to Hayes and back again. “Wait a minute. What are you saying?”

  The lieutenant nodded, and Tess continued. “Given your new accounting business and student loans, office and apartment expenses, that house money you’d inherit without all the capital gains tax could come in very handy. Not to mention the proceeds from your father’s sale of his medical supply company.”

  “Oh,” from Odabashian, “this is really good stuff.”

  Steven Zederberg’s face twisted. “Nanette?”

  His stepmother blinked, and Tess could see a tear slide down the side of the woman’s nose. “And if I had been here to die with Marty, you’d have gotten this ‘stepped-up basis’ from both of us, wouldn’t you?”

  “Nanette, how can you possibly believe — ”

  “Only,” said Tess, “We don’t think it happened that way.”

  Odabashian crossed his arms, nearly hugging himself. “Just better and better.”

  Tess looked toward the widow as she ticked off the facts on her fingers. “First, you’re twenty years younger than your husband, and you didn’t like the prospect of spending your prime and his money as a nomad in the camper. Second, your stepson, not you, volunteered the capital gains information to Lieutenant Hayes.”

  “Steven’s an accountant. Of course he’d bring it up.”

  “Third, you were pretty quick just now to dump the ‘hulking man’ theory in favor of your stepson as the killer.”

  “This is — ”

  “Fourth, you were alone with your husband in this house before he died, and you found the body all by yourself. Fifth, you were a nurse’s aide, so you’d know about the I/M-Print procedure. Sixth, the hospital your husband was born in burned down, so there’d be no record of his I/M-Print, meaning we’d never be able to identify the print. A nice little piece of misdirection.”

  Tess watched Nanette Zederberg’s complexion drain of color. “Seventh, you wanted the decedent cremated, despite him being terrified of fire all his life, and his son’s desire to see his father buried.”

  Hayes said, “When we found your husband’s body, the soles of his feet were bloody. Nothing more is going to happen at the funeral home before Cassidy here can take prints of his big toes.”

  Tess watched the son’s features crumble in doubled grief as Nanette Zederberg began to curse and cry at the same time.

  JEREMIAH HEALY, a graduate of Rutgers College and Harvard Law School, is the creator of the John Francis Cuddy private-investigator series and (under the pseudonym “Terry Devane”) the Mairead O’Clare legal-thriller series, both set primarily in Boston. Jerry has written eighteen novels and over sixty short stories, sixteen of which works have won or been nominated for the Shamus Award. He served a four-year term as the President of the International Association of Crime Writers (“IACW”), and he was the American Guest of Honour at the 35th World Mystery Convention (or Bouchercon) in Toronto during October, 2004. Currently he serves on the National Board of Directors for the Mystery Writers of America.

  The Devil’s Acre

  BY STEVE HOCKENSMITH

  Urias Smythe

  Smythe & Associates Publishing, Ltd.

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, New York

  Dear Mr. Smythe:

  I trust this letter finds you and your associates well. I can only assume it finds the lot of you mighty busy, as I have yet to hear your reaction to the book I submitted to you last month: On the Wrong Track, or Lockhart’s Last Stand, An Adventure of the Rails.

  Not that I am in the slightest impatient to have you get to it. Quite the contrary. Like a fine wine — or, to be more democratically minded, a jug of corn-mash moonshine — my book can but ripen with age. Though I could perhaps add that the public’s interest in sampling said concoction might likely diminish as the events that precipitated its distilling recede ever further into the past. Even as dazzling an episode as the commandeering of a Southern Pacific express train fades with time, just as fine wine and moonshine alike eventually turn to vinegar.

  But why point this out to you? As a successful publisher, you are no doubt well aware of the importance of striking while the (in this case, railroad) iron is hot. So I leave it to you to proceed at what I assume is your usual measured, deliberate, dawdling pace.

  By no means rush yourselves on my account — or your own!

  No, I write to you today not to urge undue (or due) haste in your reply. Rather, it’s because, while my book has lain fallow, I have not.

  As I mentioned in my last letter to you, based on sheer quantity of thrills, chills, and close scrapes, the heroes of your own Deadwood Dick Magazine and Billy Steele: Boy Detective seem like elderly shut-in spinsters compared to my brother and myself. While ol’ Dick or little Billy manage to get themselves into some kind of dustup each and every month, hardly a day passes without a new threat to life and limb for me and Gustav. Why, I’m sometimes reluctant to so much as get out of bed to make water for fear I’ll be attacked by rampaging Apaches or kidnapped by pirates on my way to the privy.

  As a case in point, allow me to relate the latest near-calamity to befall us — a tale, incidentally, that I think would fit quite snugly in the pages of one of your magazines. Jesse James Library, say. Or, even better, Big Red and Old Red Library.

  To refresh your memory, Big Red and Old Red would be me and my elder brother Gustav. We picked up our nicknames on the cattle trails we once worked as cowboys, though our handles have little of the drover’s usual irony about them. A fat cowhand may be “Skinny,” a thin one “Tubby,” or a dumb one “Professor,” but I am with no uncertainty about it big. Old Red’s not old per se, having put in a
mere twenty-seven years on this earth of ours, but he does tend to act aged, often coming across as crotchety as Methuselah suffering a flare-up of lumbago. As for the “Red,” our hair accounts for that, it being … well, as you might assume, not exactly powder blue.

  Having recently lost our jobs as Southern Pacific rail dicks (the railroad frowning upon the mislaying of company property, be it a coffee mug, a signal lantern, or — ahem — a locomotive), Old Red and I found ourselves jobless, friendless, and near-penniless in the S.P.’s hometown: San Francisco. Naturally, we wouldn’t be welcome at the Palace Hotel along with the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds and whichever other visiting fat cats might be on hand. So we ended up instead in the neighborhood known as “the Barbary Coast” … along with the sailors and the macks and the rest of the wharf rats.

  Of course, the Coast has a certain reputation, what with its dance halls, deadfalls, footpads, floozies, and all-around atmosphere of iniquity. And it lives up to said reputation — or perhaps I should say sinks down to it. But once you’ve seen a pack of young drovers cut their wolves loose at the end of a five-month cattle drive, there’s little in the way of wildness that can shock you anymore. Take Dodge City of a Saturday night, switch all the Stetsons to sailor’s caps and derbies, and multiply the noise and chaos by a factor of four, and you’ll get the Barbary Coast. We figured we could handle it.

  We chose for our lodgings a rooming house on Pacific invitingly named The Cowboy’s Rest. The Cockroach’s Rest would have been more accurate, as we saw more cucarachas than cowpokes thereabouts. But shoddy and shantylike though the place might be, it offered several advantages as a base of operations, the foremost being (in my brother’s mind) the cheapness of its rooms and (in mine) the cheapness of the drinks served in the saloon downstairs. The Rest is also a mere twenty-minute walk from the local office of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and it was there we intended to go as soon as the scrapes and bruises we’d collected during our brief run as railroad detectives had healed.