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CONTENTS
Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: FIRST IMPRESSIONS by Linda Landrigan
Department: THE LINEUP
Fiction: RUNAWAY by Eric Rutter
Fiction: REAL MEN DIE by John H. Dirckx
Fiction: THERE YOU GO, SUNDANCE by Dan Warthman
Department: THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER by Willie Rose
Department: BOOKED & PRINTED by Robert C. Hahn
Fiction: THE INCENSE MURDER by I. J. Parker
Department: SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER
Fiction: PICKUP ON ROUTE 66 by Joseph B. Atkins
Mystery Classic: SPACE-TIME FOR SPRINGERS by Fritz Leiber
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Department: EDITOR'S NOTES: FIRST IMPRESSIONS by Linda Landrigan
Is there anything more satisfying for serious readers than finding an exciting new writer? Bringing new authors to print is one of the thrills of editing AHMM. Nearly all of the writers featured this month got their start in these pages. John H. Dirckx published his first story, “A Bully's Downfall,” in July 1978 and has been a regular contributor ever since. In October 1997, I. J. Parker's “Instruments of Murder” kicked off her long-running series (now at six novels) featuring her medieval Japanese sleuth, Akitada. Shortly thereafter, James Lincoln Warren charmed us with his eighteenth century indagator for Lloyds of London, Alan Treviscoe, in “Dioscuri Deception” (Mar. 1998). Eric Rutter's clever historical “The Voice at the Barbican Gate” (Jan./Feb. 2008) is followed, in this issue, by his second historical, a poignant tale of life and murder on a Southern plantation. And not too long ago, we had the pleasure of introducing you to Dan Warthman with “A Dreadful Day” in our January/February 2009 issue; his story in this issue will leave you chuckling.
We can't claim to have published Joseph B. Atkins's first short story—Hardboiled has that honor—but we do feel we have found another writer to watch. A veteran journalist who teaches at the University of Mississippi, Mr. Atkins brings his own life experiences to “Pickup on Route 66” (he once hitchhiked crosscountry to San Francisco in the late ‘60s). We're happy to make his acquaintance and expect you will be too.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Department: THE LINEUP
Joseph B. Atkins is the author of Covering the Bosses: Labor and the Southern Press (University of Mississippi Press, 2008).
John H. Dirckx is a retired primary care practicioner. His story “Death Inside the Box” appeared in April 2009.
Booked & Printed columnist Robert C. Hahn reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly and the New York Post, among other publications.
I. J. Parker's sixth Sugawara Akitada novel, The Convict's Sword (Penguin), will be published in July 2009.
Eric Rutter is a marketing copywriter in Boyertown, Pennsylvania.
James Lincoln Warren is the editor and founder of “Criminal Brief: The Mystery Short Story Web Log Project” (www.criminalbrief.com)
Dan Warthman worked as a Boston Private detective for ten years. He has finished a novel set in Beijing.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Fiction: RUNAWAY by Eric Rutter
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Edward Kinsella III
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No slave with any sense would stick around after killing his overseer.
Zachary Todd didn't look at Hank Dixon's body. Hank looked awful in death, lying there on the floor of his cabin. His eyes stared blindly, bulging in a purple face that was frozen into a hideous grimace. His hands rested up near his neck, twisted into claws, doubtlessly raised to pry at the whip—his own whip—which had strangled the life out of him. Zack thought there was something strangely disturbing about Hank's bare feet. Somehow they made him look pathetic. His protruding discolored tongue made him look ghastly. Zack shuddered just thinking of it.
Sheriff Hines was kneeling beside Hank's corpse. He said, “Tell me about this slave that's missing."
"His name is Joe,” Zack said. “He's around my age, I guess. Thirty or so. He was born here."
"Is he a big one?"
"Not really. Bigger than me."
Hines nodded. His expression revealed nothing, but Zack felt he could guess his thoughts: Most men are bigger than you.
Hines asked, “When's the last time anyone saw him?"
"Last night, I guess. Hank would have told me if any of the slaves were missing at dinnertime. After that, I don't know. I don't know when he died, so...” He faltered as he glanced down at Hank's body again.
"Hank was your only white employee, wasn't he?"
"Yes."
This time Hines's expression made it perfectly clear what he was thinking: he thought that was a foolish policy. Zack knew all the other tobacco growers around here felt the same way. Most everyone in town too. He didn't consort with any of them very much precisely because of how he and they disagreed on such issues.
Hines stood up, hooking his thumbs in his gun belt. “So how do you know this slave's missing? The other slaves wouldn't have told you."
"I counted them myself. When Preacher came and told me Hank was dead, I got them all altogether. I saw who was missing."
"And that's Preacher?” Hines pointed at the cabin's open door. An old slave lingered there, eyes downcast.
"Yes."
"You. Preacher. Come here."
Preacher shuffled into the room.
"When did Joe leave?” Hines asked him.
"I don't know, suh."
"When's the last time you saw him?"
"Around suppertime yesterday."
"Why did he kill the boss-man here?"
"I don't know as he did, suh."
Hines pursed his lips, as if that was what he'd expected to hear. He turned to Zack. “How would you say Hank was with the slaves?"
"Fine. There wasn't much trouble. He kept order but I never let him be too hard on them.” Despite himself Zack added, “as you know."
Hines nodded, then glanced at Preacher again. “They call this one Preacher because he preaches in your slave church, right?"
"Yes."
Hines said nothing more about it, but Zack couldn't help but feel rebuked. Most of the people of Evansburg disapproved of him letting his slaves worship here on the plantation, in the white clapboard church his father had built for them decades ago. People were afraid that left unsupervised, the slaves might stir themselves up to a rebellion. Zack thought it was nonsense. No harm had ever come of slaves worshipping together here on the Todd estate, or anywhere else as far as he knew. He supposed the townspeople were just put off by the boisterous sort of Christianity Negroes favored. He could understand it, to a point. Anyone who'd ever passed a slave church on Sunday morning couldn't help but think how unruly their services were. But he wasn't about to make his slaves walk a mile to town so they could sit quietly in the balcony of St. Luke's when they had a perfectly good church right here.
Hines was turning his gaze over the room again. Zack did likewise. Hank's cabin was modest but serviceable, one neatly kept room filled with plain furniture and a small cast-iron stove. Originally the place had been built to house three farmhands, back in Zack's grandfath
er's time. He supposed that was partly why Hank had been content to live here the last two years, ever since his wife threw him out of their house in town. The extra space let him live pretty well, certainly better than the slaves in the neighboring houses.
"I'll get a posse together,” Hines said. “First thing we'll do is come back and search the plantation. Maybe your runaway's just hiding in a barn or something, though I doubt it. Too bad you don't have more help or you could search yourself."
More white help, he means, Zack thought. They both knew the slaves couldn't be trusted to turn Joe in if they found him. “What if he's not here?"
"Then we'll try and track him. Jed's bloodhound might be able to pick up the scent. If not, we'll just head north. They always go north."
Hines knelt beside Hank's body again and unwound the whip from his neck. It left deep furrows in the skin. He stood and offered the whip to Zack. Zack took it, not quite able to hide his revulsion at touching it.
Hines headed for the door. “Check Joe's quarters,” he said over his shoulder. “See if you can figure out what he's wearing."
Zack followed him out into the hot morning sunlight. Hines paused to adjust the fit of his felt slouch hat, gazing north. In the field before them, dark-skinned figures bent at work, bobbing slowly as they harvested ripe tobacco leaves. Beyond the green field stood the old maple forest which bordered the plantation on that side. Hines stared at the trees contemplatively.
The sound of a wagon rattling up the road stirred him from his thoughts. “That'll be Jacob,” he said.
As Hines headed toward the road, Zack and Preacher followed, walking single-file between Hank's cabin and the neighboring slave house.
The driver of the approaching wagon was indeed Jacob Crowley, the undertaker. His slave Lionel sat on the bench next to him.
"I'll be back in a couple of hours,” Hines told Zack. He turned and walked to his horse, which was tethered to a nearby fence post.
Zack watched him mount up and ride up the road. Anxiety grew inside him as Hines drew away. He could feel the weight of responsibility settling back on his shoulders. News of Hank's death had come as such an awful shock. He still felt a measure of the same dread that struck him as he'd approached the door to Hank's cabin first thing this morning. Just the thought of Hank lying there now made his legs feel a little weak. As he watched Hines and Crowley stop in the middle of the road to talk, he knew suddenly that he couldn't face another look at the body.
He turned to Preacher. “Handle this,” he said. “Give Mr. Crowley any help he needs. I'll be in the house."
He started to turn away, then rediscovered the whip in his hand. He thrust it at Preacher.
"Until I find a replacement for Hank, you're the overseer. Understand?"
Preacher gaped at him. “Massa Todd, I can't! I can't be overseer!"
"All right, not the overseer. Just the man in charge. You can do it. You're already in charge of the slaves, in a sense. They look to you for guidance, and you know how everything needs to be done. Heck, you know how the plantation runs better than I do."
"But, suh—"
"Just do it."
Preacher looked down at the coiled whip in Zack's hand. “Please, suh, I can't take that."
Zack pulled it away. “All right. You don't have to take the whip. But you do have to take the job. Okay?"
"Yes, Massa Todd."
Zack heard the trundle of Jacob's wagon again. He hurried toward the house.
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As Hines had predicted, they didn't find Joe on the plantation. His posse looked everywhere, inside every structure right down to the smallest shed. Most of the plantation's buildings were set in two rows that formed a V, one row consisting of the barns where the harvested tobacco was cured, the other of Hank's cabin, the slave houses, and the church. Where the two rows converged, the redbrick manor house stood. The posse searched that last. Zack stood in the parlor and listened to them clomping through the house, opening doors, and calling to each other. A few of them climbed up into the attic while Hines himself checked the root cellar in front of the hearth. They found no sign of Joe.
Afterward Zack stood on the front porch and watched them all mount their horses. Jedidiah Graham's bloodhound paced eagerly at the end of its leash. The men seemed just as restless as they sat in their saddles. One of them called up to Zack, “You want I should stay here? I could watch your slaves for you, so you can join the hunt."
"No, thanks."
The man smirked at him, as did a few others. At the front of the group, Hank Dixon's brother Wade sat beside Sheriff Hines, scowling openly at Zack. Like many of the others, he had a rifle in a boot on his saddle. Beside it was a coil of rope.
Without comment, Sheriff Hines turned his horse and led the group away.
Once they were gone, Zack went around back to check on the slaves. As he stood gazing out at the north field, a part of him wished he was riding with the posse. It wasn't like he felt comfortable here, even after all this time.
It had been three years now since he moved back home. In the summer of 1852 he came for a visit, took one look at his father, and knew he was dying. He recognized his father's swollen red eyes, pallid skin, and relentless wet cough; he'd seen them in his mother nine years before, when she was dying of consumption. So he went back to Providence, settled his affairs, and moved back into his childhood bedroom. A month later his father was dead.
Since then he'd run the plantation alone, halfheartedly. It wasn't that he'd developed other interests after graduating from Brown. What he'd developed was abolitionist sympathies. The people of Evansburg were right when they grumbled he'd been “infected with Northern ideas.” Those ideas were wholly incompatible with the running of a Virginia tobacco plantation, but he cherished them nonetheless. His father surely knew it. More than once, during that last month of his life, he made Zack swear he wouldn't sell the plantation after he died.
The plantation had pretty much run itself these last few years. The slaves were well mannered and knew their jobs. One of them was able to replace the carpenter, old Jack Livingston, when he died six months after Zack's father. Another slave stepped in to fill Horace Greer's role as charcoal burner when he moved west to try his luck as a gold miner. That left Hank as the only white employee. He proved capable of overseeing the slaves and handling those duties they shouldn't be trusted with. Now that he was dead, Zack didn't know what to do. He loathed the idea of taking over Hank's job himself. He was just as reluctant to hire one of the sneering men from town. He'd much rather leave Preacher in charge. He wondered if that made him a fool. It wasn't as if there weren't any Negro overseers on other tobacco plantations, it was just that they always had white men overseeing them.
He went back into the house and lingered there for the rest of the day, like most days. He kept to his study, though he was too distracted to read. He drank more bourbon than usual.
As dusk fell he listened to Mabel, the house slave, working in the kitchen. He stepped out onto the back porch to watch the field hands come in. The wan light reduced them to black silhouettes moving through the crops. For the first time since the posse left, it occurred to him that another man in his position would worry for his own safety here alone among thirty-six slaves—or thirty-five, since Joe was missing. But try as he might, Zack couldn't see them as a threat. Maybe he really was a fool.
In a concession to logic, that night before he went to bed he checked the old pistol in his nightstand drawer.
Sleep evaded him for a long while. But at last he dozed, only to wake after what seemed just a short time. The room was filled with muggy blackness, August night air carrying the weight of overcast. Through the open windows he could see the cloud-blanketed sky, its dim light making the windows faint rectangles of almost-black. He rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
"Massa Todd."
He opened his eyes, not sure if he'd really heard the voice.
"Massa Todd."
H
e stirred. The murmuring voice was real, but whose was it? Mabel's?
"What's wrong?” he asked the darkness.
"It's me, Massa Todd. Joe."
Cold fear surged through him. He sat up, straining to see in the darkness.
A sliver of yellow light appeared. It was a crack in a lantern's shutter. The light illuminated a dark figure standing at the bedside. It was Joe.
He said, “I brought the light with me so you'd see it's me. So you'd know you wasn't dreaming."
Zack stared at him. “What do you want?"
"I came to tell you I didn't do it. I didn't kill Mr. Dixon."
Joe's face seemed unnaturally clear in the faint lantern light. His expression was intense. It took Zack a moment to realize there wasn't any anger in it. Joe wasn't mad, he was afraid.
"What happened?” Zack asked.
"I don't know! I was outside my house last night, tending to business—you know, nature's business—when I heard a fight. It was Mr. Dixon and someone else. I heard them start hitting each other. I looked, but I couldn't see who the other man was. Then I saw the two of them run away, toward Mr. Dixon's place. I didn't know what to do. After a while I figured I better follow them in case Mr. Dixon needed help, so I did. But when I got to his place he was dead, lying on the floor."
"Where was the other man?"
"Gone."
Zack absorbed this. Then he asked, “Why did you run if you didn't do it?"
"I was scared! The guy who done it was gone, but there I was, standing there with Mr. Dixon dead. And people saw me. They came out of the houses and saw me standing there in the light. I knew they'd think I done it. So I ran off."
Zack pictured the scene. He could imagine a slave panicking in that situation. Still, he couldn't help but say, “Running only makes you look guilty."
"I didn't do it! I never touched Mr. Dixon! But now everyone thinks I did. They going to lynch me if they catch me. No one's going to believe me. You got to help me, Massa Todd. I'm innocent!"
AHMM, September 2009 Page 1