Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 787 & 788, March/April 2007

by Barbara Callahan

  Only she, Cassandra, had the power to do that…

  Alone in her sanctum, the Oracle wept.

  “I’m so sorry, Cassandra.” The priests bade the stretcher-bearers lay down their burden. “You have our deepest sympathy.”

  The body was covered by linen, but the red stains told their own story. She stared with a heart that was broken.

  “It was the will of the gods, Cassandra. Apollo needed a sacrifice, and since he spared your life, he took the life of someone you loved.”

  Not Apollo, she thought heavily. He took his own life…

  “We found him lying at the foot of the pinnacle.” The priests shuffled awkwardly. “There was… nothing anybody could do.”

  Knowing sympathy was inadequate, they retreated, leaving her alone with the body. How long, though — an hour? — before they trooped back? Not long, that’s for sure, since it was essential that the obsequies commenced as quickly as possible, and since women were not allowed inside the temple mortuary, this was her only — and last — time alone with him. She wished she could make peace with him, too.

  We named you Cassandra, your mother and I, because during the time of the Trojan War, Cassandra’s curse was to prophesy but not be believed. Her father’s words echoed in the stillness. We thought, no we hoped, it would spare you the fate of the previous sibyls. But you, child — he had smiled — you were always so headstrong.

  “The name Jason means healing,” a voice rasped at her shoulder. “Which I will, if you will allow me.”

  She looked up at him, blond and bronzed, and thought her heart would break in two. He knew. He knew the minute he’d tried to inspect Laertes’ corpse that something wasn’t right…

  “I prised it out of the Keepers of the Vigil in the end,” he had told her. “No one was allowed near the body. Only someone in authority could have issued that command. I made them divulge who, then I knocked up the temple physician.”

  That’s why he was gone so long, he explained.

  “The physician said that Periander had been acting oddly for a few days, and that he’d been worried.”

  It was why the physician agreed to go for a walk above the Shining Cliffs with him, and why he’d accepted it had been Periander’s clumsiness, not malice, that had caused him to fall and break his ankle.

  Jason stared at the bloodied sheet on the bier stained by one tear, then another, then another. “Your father was not a bad man,” he whispered.

  “With so many choices open to him, so many different paths he could have taken,” she sobbed, “why did he choose to become a cold-blooded killer?”

  “Because, darling, he loved you.”

  Anger replaced grief. “It was not for him to decide Laertes’ fate,” Cassandra spat. “Between us we could have used the Oracle to divert Laertes from his murderous intentions, and at least warn him of the assassin at his back. After that, it would be up to him how he proceeded, not for my father to decide.”

  Jason watched her tears darken the shroud.

  “Laertes came to Delphi to receive sanction for the rebellion he was planning. The king’s assassin followed,” he said. “By listening and observing, he found a willing implement in, yes, this temple’s seer of all people, but don’t be too harsh on your father, my love. We all have something we want desperately, and we all have something to trade. Your father simply wanted to save his daughter’s life.”

  Old sequences replayed in her head. Periander grief-stricken when his beloved wife fell ill to the noxious vapours inside the sanctum. But not half so pained as the day his only child announced that she was following the same career path as her mother.

  “To spare you the agony of dying young, your father became the assassin’s instrument, feeding Laertes belladonna in the belief that, whatever happened, Laertes was a dead man, but this way he could at least save his daughter.”

  If only it were that simple, Cassandra thought. He reasoned that if he discredited the Oracle and another prophetess took her place, what did principle matter, provided his daughter was safe? But did he not realise that she not only understood but accepted, when she donned the bridal robes, that the deadly vapours that rose from the rock would probably kill her? Weighed against the balance of life, the opportunity to become the holy Oracle at Delphi was still the most exciting, the most challenging, the most invigorating role any woman could hope to take on.

  “To live a few years fully is better than to live many years badly,” she said, hugging her arms to her breast.

  Once again, the decision was not her father’s to make, but the tragedy was that with Jason’s assistance she had arranged that circus this morning specifically to convince Periander that his daughter had breathed the vapours of death and that there was nothing for him to live for. Sacrilege in Apollo’s shrine had indeed been punished. But at what price, she wondered—

  “Come,” Jason said. “The priests are returning. Let’s go back to the sanctum.” He kissed her tear-stained cheeks. “There’s a fissure I want to block up.”

  Healing, he said. The name Jason means healing, and maybe, just maybe, Cassandra would grow to love him as much as he adored her.

  Right now, though, she doubted it.

  How could she love him, if she hated herself?

  A Viennese Romance

  by Stefan Slupetzky

  Copyright © 2004 by Stefan Slupetzky; first published as “Eine Wiener Romanze” in Absurdes Gluck. Translation © 2007 by Mary Tannert.

  Passport to Crime

  Stefan Slupetzky was born in 1962 in Vienna and studied at the Vienna Academy of Arts. He worked as both a musician and drawing teacher before turning to writing, and has writ-ten and illustrated more than a dozen books for children. Mr. Slupetzky now writes dramas, short fiction, and novels for adults. His crime-fiction debut, The Case of the Lemming, was awarded the Friedrich Glauser prize for best first crime novel.

  Translated from the German by Mary Tannert

  ❖

  Lizzy had almost everything. Everything but a place of her own. But because she had almost everything, she had Charlie, and he had a spare. A spare apartment, that is. Charlie would have moved in with Lizzy, but Lizzy said: “You know, living together’s best when I’m doin’ it alone. ’Cause of the vibes, you know? Then I can think about you more than when you’re always here. Know what I mean? Yeah, you know…”

  Charlie didn’t know, not really, but Lizzy got the penthouse high above the park, with the rooftop terrace and everything. Charlie had more than just “everything”; that was from his days as a great center forward on the soccer field and because he had a star manager and all. But Charlie wasn’t the brightest guy, and, well, he could be a little impulsive. Once, for example, when Lizzy didn’t answer the phone or open the door for two whole days, Charlie got a little wound up. Luckily, Lizzy’s Fiat was still in the underground parking garage, and to make sure it stayed there, Charlie slit all four tires.

  Lizzy was pretty shaken up. “My Chitty Bang,” she sobbed. “You broke my Chitty Bang!” All of a sudden, Charlie couldn’t be mad at her anymore; he was overcome by guilt instead. And soon Chitty Bang’s parking spot was occupied by a shiny new red Ferrari. To make up. Because basically Charlie was a good guy.

  So Lizzy forgave him. “Oh, Charliesweetie,” she sighed, and blew gently in his ear. Charliesweetie liked that.

  Even so, a week later the television took the brunt of it, on account of a letter on Lizzy’s nightstand. A letter that she hid from Charlie fast — but not fast enough.

  “I can’t stand it, I just can’t stand it!” screamed Lizzy, and locked herself in the bathroom.

  Charlie was seized with a terrible fear that Lizzy would slit her wrists. But she didn’t, and the next day, when Charlie apologized with a Super Reality Video Wall, he was happy, because Lizzy blew in his ear again.

  And so, with time, Lizzy’s penthouse was no longer a run-of-the-mill penthouse with a view of the park and a rooftop terrace and all. The couch ha
d been replaced with a queen-sized electrical massage lounge; where the bathtub had been there was a Jacuzzi; the extra-bright daylight lamp had become a whole solarium. And Charlie never broke anything twice. Lizzy made sure of that. The business with the sixty-piece dinner service, for example. Lizzy had found it when she was out shopping and had fallen in love with it. And the next time Charlie got all wound up, she ran into the kitchen, threw herself protectively in front of the china cabinet, arms flung wide, and begged him: “No, not Mama’s beautiful plates!” And before you knew it, Lizzy had her sixty-piece porcelain service. And a nice new mahogany cabinet to put it in.

  It could have turned out to be a great long-term relationship, with consideration on both sides and genuine understanding and everything. But at some point Lizzy noticed that Charlie hadn’t been wound up for two whole weeks, and all of a sudden it was Lizzy who was nervous. She thought: I have this funny kind of feeling that my sweetie’s neglecting me. Yeah, just like Lucy and Tommy. It’s the beginning of the end, Lucy always says…

  And that’s when Lizzy got the idea. The idea with Picasso’s beard, that is. There was this report on the television news about an art auction in New York, and Lizzy couldn’t change the channel right away to Rich and Famous because her fingernails weren’t quite dry. And when she heard what they were asking for the pictures, that was the beginning of Lizzy’s interest in art. Eyes wide, she scribbled the name “Picasso” on a scrap of paper. And afterward, she dug out the scrap of paper, learned the name by heart, and went out in search of a bookstore.

  It didn’t take Lizzy long at all to draw one of the funny-looking naked women from the Great Book of Picasso. On the third try, she was satisfied. And once she had it in the big golden frame from the furniture store, it looked pretty good to her. Lizzy hung it over the bed between the cat portrait and the sunset.

  Then she called Lucy. “Hi, it’s Lizzy… Hey, Lucy, you gotta do me a favor, okay? But it’s gotta be a secret, so don’t tell anyone, okay? See, Tommy shaves with an electric shaver, doesn’t he? Well, see, the thing is, I could really use some of the hairs from the shaver. No, it’s not a joke! What, you guys are splitting up? No, really? Hey, well, all I can say is: Men! You know? But hey, can you do it? The hairs from the shaver, I mean?… Hey, super, really! I’ll come over tomorrow and pick them up. Tomorrow afternoon. Hey, take care of yourself, okay? Bye!”

  Two days later, Charlie turned up to see Lizzy. It took awhile until he went into the bathroom, and in the bathroom it took awhile until he noticed the sink. But when he did, Charlie showed he was the same guy he’d always been.

  “Who is it?” he bellowed. “Who?… Shaving! There!” And when he tore into the bedroom, Charlie had that crazy look that Lizzy had been waiting for.

  “Anything, sweetie!” she cried out. “Anything but my Picasso!”

  “Picasso? Where is that pig? Where’s the damn pig?!” And then Charlie saw the picture on the wall, and that was the last straw. It bothered Lizzy a little when the beautiful picture frame got broken, but she didn’t say anything; she was a strong woman.

  And Charlie was a man of his word. He was pale when he got back from New York, but he had it, he really had it with him, the genuine Picasso. And it was a really big one, an oil painting, just the way he’d promised Lizzy. But when she said, “Oh, Charliesweetie” and blew in his ear, it was different from before, because Charlie was still pale, and didn’t look happy at all.

  Two weeks later, Charlie took the elevator to the top floor, went into the penthouse, and took care of Lizzy. Then he packed everything that was left of her into the deep freeze. And didn’t get wound up at all, the whole time.

  Lizzy’s plan wasn’t a bad idea, but even so, she’d made a mistake: She’d told Lucy about it. And it was Lucy who told Charlie the whole story when he got back from New York.

  Because Lucy had almost everything. Everything but a place of her own. But because she had almost everything, she had Charlie, and he had a spare.

  Valentine, July Heat Wave

  by Joyce Carol Oates

  © 2007 by Joyce Carol Oates

  A National Book Award winner and a recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction, Joyce Carol Oates is the author of many important literary novels, and short-story and poetry collections. She has also become a notable contributor to crime fiction in recent years. Her second collection of crime stories, The Museum of Dr. Moses: Tales of Mystery and Suspense, is due from Harcourt in August. She’s also got a new novel due in June. See The Gravedigger’s Daughter (Ecco).

  ❖

  By calculated estimate is Eight days should be about right.

  Not that I am a pathologist, or any kind of “naturalist.” My title at the university is professor of humanities. Yet a little research has made me fairly confident Eight days during this heat should be about right.

  Because I have loved you, I will not cease to love you. It is not my way (as I believe you must know) to alter. As you vowed to be my wife, I vowed to be your husband. There can be no alteration of such vows. This, you know.

  You will return to our house, you will return to our bedroom. When I beckon you inside you will step inside. When I beckon you to me you will come to me. You will judge if my estimate has been correct.

  Eight days! My valentine.

  The paradox is: Love is a live thing, and live things must die.

  Sometimes abruptly, and sometimes over time.

  Live things lose life: vitality, animation, the pulse of a beating heart and coursing blood carrying oxygen to the brain, the ability to withstand invasion by predatory organisms that devour them. Live things become, in the most elemental, crudest way of speaking, dead things.

  And yet, the paradox remains: In the very body of death, in the very corpse of love, an astonishing new life breeds.

  This valentine I have prepared for you, out of the very body of love.

  You will arrive at the house alone, for that is your promise. Though you have ceased to love me (as you claim) you have not ceased to be an individual of integrity and so I know that you would not violate that promise. I believe you when you’ve claimed that there is no other man in your life: no other “love.” And so, you will return to our house alone.

  Your flight from Denver is due to arrive at 3:22 P.M. You’ve asked me not to meet you at the airport and so I have honored that wish. You’ve said that you prefer to rent a car at the airport and drive to the house by yourself and after you have emptied your closets, drawers, shelves of those items of yours you care to take away with you, you prefer to drive away alone, and to spend the night at an airport hotel where you’ve made a reservation. (Eight days ago when I called every airport hotel and motel to see if you’d made the reservation yet, you had not. At least, not under your married name.) When you arrive at the house, you will not turn into the driveway but park on the street. You will stare at the house. You will feel very tired. You will feel like a woman in a trance of — what?

  Guilt, surely. Dread. That sick sense of imminent justice when we realize we must be punished, we will get what we “deserve.”

  Or maybe you will simply think: Within the hour it will be ended. At last, I will be free!

  Sometime before 4 P.M. you will arrive at the house, assuming the flight from Denver isn’t delayed. You had not known you were flying into a Midwestern heat wave and now you are reluctant to leave the air-conditioned interior of the car. For five weeks you’ve been away and now, staring at the house set back some distance from the street, amid tall, aging oaks and evergreens, you will wish to think Nothing seems to have changed. As if you have not noticed that, at the windows, downstairs and upstairs, venetian blinds seem to have been drawn tightly shut. As if you have not noticed that the grass in the front lawn is overgrown and gone to seed and in the glaring heat of the summer sun patches of lawn have begun to burn out.

  On the flagstone walk leading to the front door, a scattering of newspapers, fliers. The mailbox is s
tuffed with mail no one seems to have taken in for several days though you will not have registered Eight days! at this time.

  Perhaps by this time you will concede that, yes, you are feeling uneasy. Guilty, and uneasy.

  Knowing how particular your husband is about such things as the maintenance of the house and grounds: the maintenance of neatness, orderliness. The exterior of the house no less than the interior. Recognizing that appearances are trivial, and yet: Appearances can be signals that a fundamental principle of order has been violated.

  At the margins of order is anarchy. What is anarchy but brute stupidity!

  And so, seeing uneasily that the house seems to be showing signs of neglect, quickly you wish to tell yourself But it can have nothing to do with me! Five weeks you’ve been away and only twice, each time briefly, you have called me, and spoken with me. Pleading with me Let me go, please let me go as if I, of all people, required pleading-with.

  My valentine! My love.

  You will have seen: my car parked in the driveway, beside the house. And so you know (with a sinking heart? with a thrill of anticipation?) that I am home. (For I might have departed, as sometimes, admittedly, in our marriage I did depart, to work in my office at the university for long, utterly absorbed and delirious hours, with no awareness of time.) Not only is the car in the driveway, but I have promised you that I would be here, at this time; that we might make our final arrangements together, preparatory to divorce.

  The car in the driveway is in fact “our” car. As the house is “our” house. For our property is jointly owned. Though you brought no financial resources to our marriage and it has been entirely my university income that has supported us yet our property is jointly owned, for this was my wish.