Blood on Their Hands

by Lawrence Block

  I said, “Tara kept a copy.”

  Nolan saw the label and squeezed his eyes shut.

  I waited. “So strangling her didn’t solve anything.”

  His knees actually began to shake, and Nolan unsteadily moved to sit next to me on the bench, the loose-leaf going to his lap, the text sliding to the grass. “You have...no idea what she was like.”

  I felt a lump inside my gut begin to dissolve. “Tell me.”

  Nolan took a sudden, gasping breath, but sounded all right when he began speaking again. “Because her husband was always home, tending to his mother, Tara usually came to my house. Its seclusion allowed us...freedom and privacy. I loved her, Rory. Plain and simple.”

  “Too much to stand losing her.”

  “She was standing in the parking lot outside Cottontail’s that night, as though she’d been watching for me to arrive. When Tara told me about the...that tape—from one of our few ‘motel trysts’—I couldn’t believe it. That she’d blackmail...me.” Nolan seemed to range inside himself, speaking next without any emotion. “The air that night was cold, even for January, so she wore a scarf, and I, gloves. It all happened so...quickly.”

  “And you got back in your car and left?”

  “Yes. I went straight home, and stayed up till dawn, cleaning and vacuuming so there’d be no trace of Tara left. But by going to the police the next day and implicating Lacey, I was spared them searching my house, anyway.”

  “And you might have gotten away with it, except that—” I thought back to Don Floyd’s comment at my practice session, “—you realized you needed a second ‘service provider.’”

  Nolan squeezed his eyes shut again. “Yes. I broached it with Lacey one night over drinks. She was rather cool to the idea.”

  I remembered her reaction to my testing on the same point. “Which left Monica?”

  “Yes. She—”

  “Why not one of your students, though? You had—’’

  “Rory! That would be...incest. Academic incest, even without all the sexual harassment rules the college has now. The quickest way to lose all I’d worked for the last twenty years would have been to try something with a student.’’

  Listening to Nolan’s finely parsed ethical distinctions, I tried to keep a straight face.

  Then he softened again. “And besides, there was something...better about having intimately one of the women I and hundreds of others saw publicly.” Nolan looked me in the eye. “Rutting with the slut from the strip joint, you know?”

  “Even the ‘poignant’ one.”

  “Quoted against myself. Or perhaps more in support of my confession, eh?” A sad smile, and he looked down at his textbook on the ground. “But when I went to Monica about it two nights ago, she was drunk, and that didn’t make her any more...amenable to my proposed arrangement, so to speak. No, just the opposite. Monica swung an empty bottle of booze at my head, just missing, and as I pushed her off, I came away with the sash to her robe. Then she strutted into the kitchen to call the police, accusing me over the shoulder of murdering Tara. Well, what could I do, Rory? I tied a quick slipknot in one end of the sash, and as Monica was setting down the bottle and lifting the wall phone from its cradle, I flipped the noose over her head and around her neck. But she struggled fiercely, and I didn’t have the right leverage, so I tossed the free end of the sash over the top of the door and just pulled on it for all I was worth.”

  Nolan seemed to run out of steam. “When I knew she was dead...her eyes, even her tongue...I tied the end of the sash to the outside doorknob, and used a napkin to replace the telephone in its cradle and to move a stepstool to where a suicide might kick it over. I thought the empty bottle would lead the police in that direction, and it did.”

  When he didn’t continue, I said, “Feel better now?”

  “Strangely, yes. I remember us discussing Maugham before, but frankly the last two days from Monica—no. No, the last thirty from Tara—have been more...Dostoyevsky.”

  “Crime and Punishment?”

  “Just so.” Nolan took another of those gasping breaths. “Well, what’s next?”

  “What do you think? The police.”

  A nod and the sad smile. “I wonder, Rory, could I ask if you’re a taxpayer?”

  Now I did laugh. “A taxpayer?”

  “Yes, because I have a favor to ask. And not an unreasonable one, I think.” Nolan paused. “If you’d do me the courtesy of never telling anyone about what you’ve found out about—”

  “Are you off your—”

  “I’d like to spare our state’s legal system some costs.”

  I looked at him. It bothered me that Nolan’s point made ninety percent sense. “What about Barry Cardiff and his mother?”

  “Not your concern. It was Monica who approached you, correct?”

  “And Tara Tate provided for her husband and—”

  “Very well, then.” Nolan blinked. “I’ll change my will in the bargain. That house of mine and anything else I own can go to Cardiff to replace Tara’s...income.”

  I weighed the deal. It was better than what’d be left after everybody’s lawyers got into the act.

  Which let me see a loophole. “What’s to keep me from breaking my word after you’re...afterward?”

  “I’ll risk that, Rory.” A pause. “I’m really rather short on options, aren’t I?”

  Leaving Professor Jason Nolan on the bench with his books, I promised myself to get up early the next few days and check the front page of the Sun-Sentinel.

  About the Authors

  BRENDAN DUBOIS is the award-winning author of short stories and novels. His short fiction has appeared in Playboy, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, and numerous anthologies. He has twice received the Shamus Award from Private Eye Writers of America for his short stories and has been nominated three times for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife Mona. Visit his website at www.BrendanDuBois.com.

  * * *

  An old man slips two fingers in the coin-return pockets of a rack of pay phones: quick, practiced. Hurries on. A woman at the diner orders a cup of tea with a side of catsup—nouvelle tomato soup, what the hell. Invisible in plain sight, the make-doers live among us. NOREEN AYRES finds a story of a handful of such denizens in an affluent beach town, who for a moment effectively guide the hand of justice. Author of three forensics-based mystery novels, she edits technical documents at an environmental engineering company in Washington state. She holds an M.A. in English from Cal-State University at L.A. ,and has taught English, creative writing, and a number of subjects she knew by virtue of reading one chapter ahead of the students. Among her interests are ballroom dancing, competition handgun shooting, crafts, woodworking, and care of animals.

  * * *

  SHELLEY COSTA’S stories have appeared in The Georgia Review, The North American Review, Crimewave, and Cleveland Magazine. She graduated from Douglass College, studied acting and playwriting at HB Studio in Greenwich Village, and worked for two years in the trade division at Henry Holt and Company. Later, at Case Western Reserve University, she wrote a dissertation on suspense in classic American literature and earned a Ph.D. in English. These days she enjoys both Henry and P. D. James and works as an adjunct professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art, where she teaches courses in fiction writing and acting Shakespeare. Her home is Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she vacations in the Canadian Northwoods, the setting of “Black Heart and Cabin Girl.”

  * * *

  TOM SAVAGE is the author of four best-selling suspense novels: Precipice, Valentine, The Inheritance, and Scavenger. He also writes a detective series under the name “T. J. Phillips.” Valentine was made into a Warner Bros. film. He is currently a director-at-large on the national board of Mystery Writers of America. Raised in St Thomas, Virgin Islands, he now lives in New York City, where he works at Murder Ink, the world’s oldest my
stery bookstore. “One of Us” is his first published short story.

  * * *

  TRACY KNIGHT’S short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies encompassing a variety of genres, including suspense, mystery, science fiction, and horror. His nonfiction, primarily focusing on psychological topics, has included a chapter in the Writer’s Digest book Writing Horror and a column for Mystery Scene magazine. Recent novels included Western novel Beneath a Whiskey Sky (Leisure Books), and a fantasy novel The Astonished Eye (PS Publishing). Tracy, his wife Sharon, and three feline entities live in rural west-central Illinois, where he works as a clinical psychologist and university professor.

  * * *

  AILEEN SCHUMACHER is the author of the Tory Travers/David Alverez mystery series. Her second book in the series, Framework for Death, was nominated for the Anthony Award for Best Novel. The fourth book, the award-winning Rosewood’s Ashes, was published in 2001. Her short fiction has appeared in The Blue and the Gray Undercover and Murder, Mayhem, and Mistletoe. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.

  * * *

  Publishers Weekly said ELAINE VIETS’S fourth novel, Doc in the Box, would give readers “perverse satisfaction.” She has read all four of her mysteries for Americana audiobooks. Elaine takes her crime seriously. She is a graduate of the MedicoLegal Death Investigators Course at Saint Louis University. She is an at-large delegate to the national board of the Mystery Writers of America. Elaine was chair of the 2002 Edgar Best First Novel committee. She is also a national board member of Sisters in Crime. She lives in Hollywood, Florida, with her husband, Don Crinklaw, an author and actor.

  * * *

  A member and board member of Mystery Writers of America, G. MIKI HAYDEN has had a steady stream of short mystery fiction in print Miki’s novel. Pacific Empire, lauded by The New York Times, was well received by readers, as was her psychiatric mystery, By Reason of Insanity. Miki, the author of Writing the Mystery: A Start-to-Finish Guide for Both Novice and Professional, a Writer’s Digest Book Club selection, is the immediate past president of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, which presents the yearly Derringer Awards. Miki teaches, coaches, and book doctors from her home in Manhattan.

  * * *

  A member of the New York Chapter of Mystery Writers of America, ELAINE TOGNERI is also the founder and a past president of the Sisters in Crime—Central Jersey chapter. Her short fiction has appeared widely in the small press, including magazines: Futures Mysterious Anthology, Mystery Time, and Whispering Willows Mystery Magazine. A New Jersey native, Elaine graduated from Rutgers University and works as an information technology specialist.

  * * *

  HENRY SLESAR (1927-2002) was a mainstay of the fiction magazines of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the last big boom of the digests, which were just the pulps in more convenient size. He did it all and he did it well. In the course of his career he has won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for novel (1960) and TV serial (1977), and an Emmy Award for a continuing daytime series (1974). He has written for many TV series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Twilight Zone, as well as surviving many years as the writer-producer of a long-running soap opera The Edge of Night.

  * * *

  WILLIAM E. (BILL) CHAMBERS served as Executive Vice President of the Mystery Writers of America and as New York Chapter President. His novels Death Toll and The Redemption Factor, are available through Mystery Writers of America Presents at iUniverse.com. His short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Over My Dead Body, Mike Shayne’s Mystery Magazine, and anthologies in the United States and Britain. “An Ode to Freedom” was published in Best Poems of the Millennium by the International Library of Poetry. Bill has acted in Casino Beat a vehicle being shopped to various television networks by Watersign Productions. Bill and his wife Marie once owned a bar restaurant named Chambers Pub in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

  * * *

  STEFANIE MATTESON is the author of eight mysteries in a series published by Berkley Prime Crime. Her most recent mystery is Murder Under the Palms. Her other titles are Murder Among the Angels, Murder on High, Murder at the Falls, Murder on the Silk Road, Murder on the Cliff, Murder at Tea Time, and Murder at the Spa. All of her mysteries feature Charlotte Graham, a movie actress-turned-sleuth. Before turning to mysteries, Matteson was a newspaper reporter and editor. She lives in New Jersey with her two children.

  * * *

  CHARLOTTE HINGER, author of Come Spring, published by Simon and Schuster, won the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Bearer’s Award and was a finalist for the Spur Award. Hinger has published a number of mystery short stories. “The Family Rose,” which first appeared in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, was later reprinted in two anthologies, Murder on the Verandah and Murder to Music. She was the editor of two comprehensive hardcover volumes of family/county histories. She has served on the board of the Kansas State Historical Society and is on the editorial board of Heritage of the Great Plains. Charlotte writes nonfiction about contemporary and historical issues in the rural West She has completed the first book in a mystery series and is working on a historical novel. She lives in Hoxie, Kansas, where she and her husband own a livestock truck line.

  * * *

  DAN CRAWFORD, is familiar to readers of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine as well as to those eight or nine people who bought one of his Rossacottan novels. At one time he thought to make his first million as a greeting card writer, but his line of humorous sympathy cards didn’t take off. His career as a gag writer was shorter and even less profitable; he is now training for a position as Lottery Winner. He was once questioned by the FBI, but was found irrelevant In his spare time he manages an annual book sale involving 200 volunteers and 100,000 books, primarily so he can mark up the prices on his own work.

  * * *

  RHYS BOWEN is British by birth, but now lives in California. After college she worked in BBC drama in London and wrote several radio and TV plays. She was lured to Australia to work for Australian broadcasting, where she met her husband and moved with him to the San Francisco area. Under her married name she has written around 100 books, ranging from children’s books to sagas, before switching to her favorite reading material, mysteries. She is the author of six books in the Constable Evans series, set in North Wales, including Evan Help Us, nominated for a Barry Award for best mystery. Murphy’s Law is the first book in her new historical mystery series set in New York 1901, featuring brash Irish immigrant Molly Murphy. It won the Agatha, Reader’s Choice, and Herodotus Awards. Rhys has also written several short stories, among them “The Seal of the Confessional,” which was nominated for both the Anthony and Agatha Awards.

  * * *

  MAT COWARD is a British writer of crime, science fiction, horror, children’s, and humorous fiction, whose stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio and published in numerous anthologies, magazines, and e-zines in the United Kingdom, United States, and Europe. According to Ian Rankin, “Mat Coward’s stories resemble distilled novels.” His first non-distilled novel—a whodunit called Up and Down—was published in the United States in 2000. His first collection of short crime stories, Do the World a Favour and Other Stories, was recently published by Five Star Press.

  * * *

  MARCIA TALLEY’S first Hannah Ives novel, Sing It to Her Bones, won the Malice Domestic Grant and was nominated for an Agatha Award as Best First Novel. Unbreathed Memories, the second in the series, won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best Contemporary Mystery. Both were Featured Alternates of the Mystery Guild. Hannah’s third adventure, Occasion of Revenge, is a Romantic Times Top Pick. Marcia is also the editor of a collaborative serial novel, Naked Came the Phoenix, where she joins twelve bestselling women authors to pen a tongue-in-cheek mystery about murder in a luxury health spa. Her short stories have appeared in magazines and collections, including “With Love, Marjorie Ann” and “Too Many Cooks,” which received Agatha Award nominatio
ns for Best Short Story. She lives in Annapolis, Maryland, with her husband Barry. When she isn’t writing, she spends her time traveling or sailing.

  * * *

  ELIZABETH FOXWELL is a contributing editor to Mystery Scene magazine and a founding director of Malice Domestic Ltd. She has edited or coedited nine anthologies, including More Murder They Wrote, published five short stories, and writes frequently about mystery fiction. Her website can be found at www.elizabethfoxwell.com.

  * * *

  JEREMIAH HEALY (1948-2014) was a professor at the New England School of Law when the release of his debut novel about private detective John Francis Cuddy, Blunt Darts, announced that there was a wise new kid on the block. Since then, he wrote more than eighteen novels featuring his melancholy P.I., all enhancing his reputation as an important and sage writer whose work took the private-eye form to an exciting new level. Winner of the Shamus Award in 1986 for The Staked Goat. he was one of those writers who packs the poise and depth of a good mainstream novel into an even better genre novel.

  About the Editor

  Lawrence Block has been writing crime, mystery, and suspense fiction for more than half a century. He has published more than 100 books and no end of short stories.

  He is best known for his series characters, including cop-turned-private investigator Matthew Scudder, gentleman burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner, and introspective assassin Keller.