The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe

by Josh Pachter

  A car alarm sounded. It only lasted for a second, but it was enough to distract Julius and let Cather rush in and grab the .38. An apologetic smile showed on Cather’s face as he pointed the gun at Julius’s chest. But there was something wrong with the smile. Something vicious about it. And I realized what was also in it. Resentment. I wondered about the cause of that. Maybe Cather believed that he should’ve had the fame and reputation Julius had.

  “I’m really sorry about this, Julius,” Cather said, although he didn’t sound sorry. “I’ve always liked you, and I wouldn’t have sold that dog if I had any idea you were going to be investigating Luther’s murder. I had that guy in England two months ago offer me six hundred grand, and when I looked for a replacement bulldog I only did it as a lark. I knew I couldn’t get away with a switch, at least not with Luther alive. But when he was killed, that changed things. Six hundred grand, Julius. To my credit, I gave the cops the full seven days to solve Luther’s murder before sending you that bomb. You can’t blame me for that, or for this.”

  Julius took several steps back, but he didn’t look away when Cather pulled the trigger. I wanted to turn off my visual receptors and not see what was going to happen, but I needed to have a recording to show the police—at least from Cather’s confession up until he pulled the trigger. This was an example of what I mentioned earlier about Cather not being as smart as he thought he was. He might not have known Julius was a fifth-degree black belt in Shaolin kung fu, but he did know Julius was trained in martial arts, so he should’ve realized it shouldn’t have been so easy for him to grab the gun. And he didn’t know what I really am, so he couldn’t have known it was me who triggered the car alarm, but he still should’ve found the alarm going off at that exact moment suspicious, and he should’ve also known Julius wouldn’t be so easily distracted. If he was half as smart as he thought he was, he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, and he certainly wouldn’t have shown that look of shocked surprise when the gun exploded, at least for that split second while he was still alive.

  Four months later, gifts of wine were still coming in from friends, past clients, wine enthusiasts, and celebrities of all kinds. The highlight today was a full case of 1978 Montrachet, which—given its price tag of twenty-four grand a bottle—was an extravagant gift, even if it had come from a multi-billionaire.

  Before the explosion, Julius had more than five thousand bottles in his wine collection. He now had over forty-two hundred bottles in his newly built cellar, and the only ones he’d bought came from the case of 1990 Château Beauséjour Duffau-Lagarrosse that he’d acquired at auction before the bombing. He was still missing several of his most prized vintages, but any wine expert comparing Julius’s previous inventory with his current one would give his current collection the edge. Julius might even grudgingly do so himself if he was pestered enough. Or maybe if he was under the influence of sodium pentothal.

  These days I make sure that all packages Julius receives are safe. It wasn’t hard for me to learn how to do so—all it took was some rudimentary research to show me how to use a range of emitted frequencies to detect hidden electronics. No one will ever slip another bomb past Julius as long as I’m around.

  Julius’s rebuilt townhouse is similar to what he had before. He did make a few alterations in the design and furnishings, so that his home would be more accommodating to Lily, which is ironic. While they still see each other, it’s different, and they’ve put their plans of living together on hold, at least for now.

  Julia was right about the booby-trapped gun changing Julius. He was never what anyone would call warm and fuzzy, but, since Cather blew himself up, he’s become more distant. He won’t talk to me about it, but I know he’s trying to come to terms with what he did. I think he’s being too hard on himself. Yeah, he might’ve given Cather enough rope to hang himself, but the reason Cather is dead is that he tried for a second time to kill Julius. I’ve since analyzed thousands of literary novels dealing with morality, and I’ve been able to reconcile my role in Cather’s death. In fact, I’ve decided that if I’d been in Julius’s shoes, I wouldn’t have done things any differently.

  Legally, Julius is in the clear. Cramer didn’t believe for a second that Cather surprised Julius in the garage parking lot as Julius claimed. In fact, Cramer belligerently accused Julius of setting Cather up, insisting it would’ve been impossible for a man like Cather to get the better of Julius. He’s right, of course, but he has no way of proving it. Not with the recording I made, and not with the booby-trapped gun a dead end. That was why Julius had needed his sister to obtain it. She has the necessary connections to get a weapon like that so it can never be traced back to anyone.

  I’m no expert on the affairs of the heart. In fact, I admit I’m a bare novice. But I strongly suspect the shift in Julius and Lily’s relationship is due to him needing to reconcile with himself what he did. I could be wrong. It could that he’s afraid he’s endangering her, afraid there might be another Willie Cather out there who could also put her in jeopardy.

  Whichever it is, I hope Julius is able to work past it. I hope he and Lily are able to get back to where they were. It doesn’t take a lot of computing power to know that he was happier after meeting Lily, at least before Cather blew up his home.

  The Possibly Last Case of Tiberius Dingo

  by Michael Bracken

  AUTHOR’S NOTE: The initial draft of “The Possibly Last Case of Tiberius Dingo” was written over the course of several weeks in early 2018 after learning that Josh Pachter hoped to include an original story or two in what would otherwise be a collection of reprints. I wanted to write a story about a great detective and his assistant near the end of their careers, but I discovered, as I wrote, that I knew less about Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin than I thought I did. So, during subsequent months, I relied heavily on editor Pachter’s suggestions and revision demands to shape the story into its final form.

  “I’m sorry,” said the corpulent man in the adjustable bed. “I’m retired.”

  “You’re my only hope, Mr. Dingo.” Ruth Entemann, a full-figured brunette who didn’t look a day over sixty despite pushing hard against seventy, scooted her chair closer to the bed and took Tiberius Dingo’s left hand in both of hers. “That’s why I asked Mr. Badloss to introduce us.”

  I knew Dingo didn’t like to be touched, so I offered him a reason to draw his hand away. “Isn’t it time for your medication?”

  My employer retrieved his hand and looked at the Rolex Oyster strapped to his left wrist, a gift several years earlier from a grateful client who had nothing else to use for payment. “Yes, I believe it is.”

  “I’m afraid,” I said, as I helped Ruth to her feet and led her out to the brownstone’s front door, “that Mr. Dingo and I have much to discuss before reaching a decision regarding your situation.”

  Ruth was standing on the stoop by then, and she said, “But he will—?”

  “Only a matter of time,” I assured her as I eased the door closed. “Only a matter of time.”

  I returned to the room Dingo had once used as his office and found he’d adjusted the bed to maneuver himself into a sitting position. His medication consisted of an imported Merlot, which I uncorked and allowed to breathe before serving.

  “Who is she, Jughead, and why in God’s name did you bring her to me?”

  I knew Ruth from the Senior Center. “She’s one of my dance partners, and ten thousand dollars is why.”

  He waved the back of his hand in my direction. “A trifle.”

  “For you, perhaps, but my bank account could use some fattening.”

  Dingo stared at me over the top of his wineglass, and I’m certain he intended to make a rude comment about my money-management skills. I didn’t give him the opportunity.

  “Our client”—I’d already deposited Ruth’s retainer and run a background check on her before introducing her to my employer—“i
s the daughter of Ebenezer and Mary Entemann. She has a brother named Christian. She’s never married and says she can’t have children.” Ruth had come to us because she thought someone was stalking her, and she’d heard about her brother’s near-fatal automobile accident only a few days earlier.

  “And her brother?”

  “He’s five years older, sold imported sports cars until he retired, and is now on life support at Hale Mary Fuller Grace Hospital. He has one son—Toby—who doesn’t seem to be good for much of anything. Toby’s had several brushes with the law and has no visible means of support.”

  Though neither was worth any significant amount, Ruth and her brother received generous monthly stipends from a family trust. Their children, if any, would begin receiving a monthly stipend from the trust upon their deaths.

  Dingo silenced me. “Other than her nephew, are there other suspects?”

  “Some of the ladies at the Senior Center are jealous because I dance with Ruth more often than with them.”

  He eyed me with disdain. “And you think that is a reason for one of them to stalk her?”

  “Of course not,” I said, despite my high opinion of my two-stepping skills, “but we should at least consider the possibility that someone at the Center has a grudge against her for some real or imagined slight. The Senior Center has all the drama of high school, but with wrinkles.”

  Dingo finished his wine and held out his glass for a refill. “Are you certain you’re up to the task?”

  “I’ve kept my license current,” I reminded him.

  “Well, then, look into this a little further and let me know what you learn.”

  He drained his Merlot as I stood.

  “And find out what’s keeping dinner.”

  Dingo’s personal chef of several decades had, after succumbing to a rather aggressive widow with matrimonial intent, been replaced by a tag team of younger chefs incapable of meeting Dingo’s high standards, none of whom was given time enough to settle into the chef’s quarters at the rear of the brownstone before being sent packing. I didn’t recognize the whippet in white manning the kitchen that day. She’d been sent from the agency when Dingo dismissed her predecessor after a flambé went flam-blooey, singeing both his eyebrows and his ego. When I relayed the big man’s concerns, she fiddled with her hairnet and stared at me until I backed out of her domain.

  A few minutes later, I phoned one of the operatives we had used during Dingo’s heyday.

  “Mook,” I said, after he answered and I identified myself, “I have a job for you.”

  “I thought you were out of the sleuthing business.”

  “We’re back in. You game?”

  He said he was, so I assigned him to watch Ruth Entemann’s home and follow anyone he spotted skulking about the place.

  As always, the women outnumbered the men at the Senior Center dance the following evening, which meant those of us with even a modicum of rhythm were guaranteed full dance cards so long as we bathed often and kept our hands from straying.

  I let Ruth know Dingo had taken her case. Grateful, she planted a kiss on my cheek in full view of the other women and hooked her arm in mine. Her lipstick marked me, and I noticed the dirty glances and side-eyes as she led me onto the dance floor for a country waltz.

  Between dances, I asked some questions about her family.

  “I haven’t spoken to my brother since”—she glanced away, not meeting my gaze—“I haven’t spoken to him in a long time, and I have no reason to do so now.”

  “And your—” I began, intending to ask about her nephew.

  The band eased into a slow number, and she pulled me close. “I love this song.” She filled my arms and pressed against me in a far more intimate manner than a casual dance partner would.

  Later that evening, when she asked me to escort her home, I feigned misunderstanding of her intent. “We have a man keeping his eye on you.”

  “It’s not a man’s eyes I want,” she said, giving my arm a squeeze. “Not tonight.”

  I took her home and walked her to her door. She invited me inside, where one thing led to another, and I didn’t leave until sunrise.

  Dingo buzzed me in from the command center at his bed before I could reach for my keys, and as I hung my jacket on the rack in the foyer he called me into his room. Cameras at the front and rear doors feed live images to a small monitor beside his bed, and Dingo can buzz in visitors at either entrance if I’m unavailable to greet them. He can also summon me from my third-floor bedroom, which he does on occasion just to amuse himself, and to remind me who employs whom.

  As I stepped into his room, he asked, “Business or pleasure?”

  “A bit of both,” I admitted.

  The whippet in white stepped into the room behind me. “Will you be joining Mr. Dingo for breakfast?”

  I glanced at my employer.

  “Eggs Benedict,” he told me, and to the chef he said, “Yes, he will. We have much to discuss.”

  “Have I got time for a shower?”

  “By all means,” Dingo said. “You smell like a brothel.”

  I headed upstairs and returned half an hour later wearing clean clothes, my hair still damp. Dingo had finished half his breakfast, so I sat in the armchair, held my plate on my lap, and hurried to catch up.

  “I made some inquiries while you were out,” Dingo said between bites, “and I’m no closer to locating our client’s nephew.”

  “Have you contacted his parole officer?” I asked. “He must have one.”

  My employer glared at me, and I realized I was not there to ask questions but to answer them. He inquired about the people who’d attended the dance and about Ruth’s neighbors. He listened intently but dismissed most of what I told him until I brought up her family. “What did you learn?”

  “Little of value,” I said. “Ruth won’t talk about them. Something must have happened to drive them apart.”

  “Of course,” Dingo said, “but what?”

  We sat in silence for a moment. Then I said, “I did notice one thing.”

  “Which was?”

  “She has a scar from a caesarean section.”

  “Did you ask about it?”

  “I couldn’t,” I told him. “My mouth was full at the time.”

  After breakfast, I phoned Mook. He agreed to meet at the diner where we’d often traded pleasantries prior to my employer’s retirement. I arrived first and sat in the last booth with my back to the wall, a habit cultivated after a client’s husband rearranged my face on learning that she’d spent a week in the brownstone. Thanks to his efforts, I sport a mug with “character.”

  Mook came in the door, and I motioned him back. The wire-thin operative had changed little since the last time we worked together, but his curly hair had turned white.

  I asked, “Anything?”

  “There was a woman watching the place,” Mook said. “She hung around until you showed up, but that seemed to spook her and she hightailed it out of there.”

  “You see where she went?”

  “Followed her to her doorstep. She didn’t have a clue I was behind her.”

  “And?”

  “The name on the mailbox says J. Wilson. This morning I went back, chatted up a bluehair in one of the ground-floor apartments, and learned the J stands for Jennifer. She lives alone, been in the apartment about five years. The bluehair didn’t know much about her, said she keeps mostly to herself.”

  He showed me photos taken with his smartphone, and nothing about the woman stood out. Wilson was as average as average could be.

  “Send them to me,” I said.

  When he finished, Mook pushed a piece of paper across the table with the woman’s name and address on it. The waitress returned, we ordered, and we spent the rest of our lunch reminiscing about cases long past—the Cell Phone Ran
g case, the Paper Clip case, and the case of cheap whiskey a client once presented Dingo that he passed on to us because the taste offended his refined palate.

  We also talked about the fallen women and the women we had fallen for over the years, which led Mook to ask about my previous evening’s activities.

  “I followed Ms. Wilson,” he said, “so I didn’t see you leave.”

  I smiled and said nothing.

  “You know better than to get involved with a client,” Mook said. “Didn’t the suicide blonde teach you that lesson?”

  Her husband was the one who rearranged my face, so I was reminded of her every time I looked in the mirror. “Maybe I forgot what I learned.”

  Back in the brownstone, I logged on to my laptop computer and researched Jennifer Wilson. Raised in the suburbs, the fifty-five-year-old schoolteacher had called the Big Apple home since graduating from college. She’d never married, lived alone, had no siblings, and her adoptive parents—an auto mechanic and a schoolteacher—died two days after her forty-fifth birthday.

  That evening, while sharing a standing rib roast with my employer, I filled him in. He said little about my progress and even less about our meal, which I took as approval for the chef’s performance. If the whippet in white had made even the tiniest mistake, Dingo’s berating would likely have made her question her career choice.

  As we did most nights after dinner, Dingo drained a bottle of Merlot and I drained a tall glass of Bosco before I headed upstairs to bed. I should have taken the dirty glasses and empty bottle to the kitchen for the whippet to deal with first thing in the morning, but I was too tired to bother, and Dingo didn’t notice when I slipped out of his room.