Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 36, No. 6, June 1991
Editor’s Notes
by Cathleen Jordan
We have a varied group of authors to welcome to this issue, and as always, we’re pleased indeed that they have joined us. Five new authors, as a matter of fact; that may be a record for us.
John Paxton Sheriff, author of “Fifth Time Dead,” is a Liverpudlian who now lives in Wales, with a fifteen-year stretch in the British army in between. He spent, he tells us, five years in Australia as a motor mechanic, among other jobs, “everything from bottle washer to computer operator,” and is now a full-time photo-journalist with many illustrated articles in national United Kingdom magazines to his credit. His previous short stories appeared in Australian and English magazines; we’re glad to welcome him to U.S. publication with this one.
William Pomidor, like the character in “M Is for Mayo,” is a doctor married to a doctor. He has had one prior story published as well as a lot of medical nonfiction, and is presently medical editor and researcher for a large community hospital. His wife is a geriatrician.
J. D. Blumberg (her first name is Juanita) is not only being published for the first time with “The Mystery of Lilac Cottage” — this is the first story she’s written. She is a pilot and an air racer who won two national titles in 1981. From 1985 to 1990, she was involved in organizing the Great Southern Air Race, has briefly worked as an air traffic controller, and headed up a family-owned glass business. At present, she does publicity and desktop publishing for nonprofit organizations.
Edie Ramer, author of “Picking Daisies,” has had two other stories published, one in Oui magazine, the other in The Second WomanSleuth Anthology. She has worked in “offices, restaurants, a factory, the phone company, a tax office,” and is now a proof operator in a bank. “I work part-time now and write full-time, which doesn’t leave much extra for hobbies, unless taking my dog Lulu for long walks counts.”
Michele Stone Kilmer has also had a diverse career. Besides doing stained glass work and model ship building, she has been a “horseback riding instructor, factory worker, fabric store salesgirl, artist, and secretary,” among other things. Presently, she is a presser at a dry cleaners (aha!), and “In by Ten, Dead by Five, or, Murder at the Dry Cleaners” is her first published story.
Blind Trust
by Gary Alexander
“You,” said a woman with two cameras. “You’re that upside down guy!”
Luis Balam smiled and said, “He was Maya, I am Maya.”
“Doesn’t the blood rush to your head?” someone else said.
After the laughter, Luis explained the “upside down guy,” a wall stucco of an ornately-dressed figure who seemed to be standing on his head. “He is guarding the doorway of his namesake, the Temple of the Descending God. Or the Bee God or the Diving God, some historians say. Nobody will be certain until the glyphs are completely translated. This deity is commonly represented in ruins throughout the Yucatan.”
The woman with two cameras snapped Luis’s picture. Through her viewfinder she saw a thirty-seven-year-old Yucatec Maya of average height: five feet three. She saw a round face, prominent cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and the almond eyes brought across the Bering landbridge millennia ago. She saw a deceptive musculature, she saw stockiness without fat.
Luis Balam was short but not small. Some had learned that distinction to their regret while Luis was with the police. Before the trouble, before he was forced out.
“The hieroglyphics are being translated, aren’t they?”
“More every day,” Luis said, leading his group to the finale, the largest structure at Tulum — El Castillo, the castle. “Still, only a fraction is known.”
“Do you?”
“I speak Maya,” Luis said. “I cannot read it. When the Spaniards came, they destroyed our writings. Only three codices survived. They are in European museums. Many times I have asked these walls to talk to me.”
Luis took his tourists up El Castillo’s steps. They caught their collective breath while looking out at the Caribbean. The midday sun was lost above puffy clouds but not forgotten. Intense tropical rays cast the sea the hue of blue topaz.
He said, “Tulum is the largest fortified site on Mexico’s Quintana Roo coast. Tulum means ‘wall’ in Maya. The wall behind us that we came through is up to eighteen feet high and twenty feet thick. The cliff El Castillo and we stand on is forty feet high.”
“Tulum was a fort?”
“And a trading center.”
“The Spaniards came to Tulum, didn’t they?”
This was Luis’s favorite part. “In 1511 a Spanish ship hit the reef and sank. Most survivors were sacrificed or died of disease. One Spaniard married a Maya woman, fathered three children, and commanded Maya troops who drove off the next Spanish foray in 1517. Hernán Cortez, no fool, sailed north and took on the Aztecs instead.”
“Human sacrifice,” a man said. “You Mayans still do that?”
This group was pleasant and playful if not generous. With a straight face, Luis said, “Not regularly.”
The laughter was hearty and just slightly nervous.
Outside the wall, in a seedy bazaar offering everything from T-shirts to postcards to ice cream, Luis recounted his money. Eight people, seven U.S. one-dollar bills. There was always a deadbeat in a crowd that size.
But Luis was not complaining. It was June, the beginning of summer. North Americans could stay home and lie on their own beaches and burn under their own sun. Many, many did. With the rabid competition amongst guides for those who came to Cancún, he had been fortunate to snag this cluster of eight. He conceded an edge, though, his resemblance to the “upside down guy.” Most of the others were mestizo, mixed European and native ancestry. He could think of no other advantage a full-blooded Indian had over a mainstream Mexican.
“Excuse me. You got a minute?” said a jowly, florid man.
He was in his fifties. His wispy, straw-colored hair was slicked straight back. He had been in the group, studiously anonymous, staying in the rear as if shy, smoking cigarette after cigarette. “I have a minute.”
The man extended a beefy, freckled hand. “Bud Lamm, Mr. Balam. I’ve got me one helluva problem, and I’ve been told you’re the best.”
Bud Lamm’s stomach protruded as if he were concealing a helmet under the chartreuse pullover that complimented tan plaid shorts. The quarry of a Cancún shop catering to golfers, Luis guessed.
“The best at what?”
“Investigating and getting to the bottom of things around here. I also toured Tulum with you day before yesterday. Remember?”
Luis remembered. He was the sort who endured cultural enrichment on his wife’s leash. “You were with a woman. She asked intelligent questions.”
“Helen. She’s my wife. This archaeology, that’s her thing. That and birdwatching. Me, I came for the sun and the margaritas and the golf. We’re from up by Chicago. We’re renting a condo up the coast a ways, which is what I need to see you about. Yesterday, I was checking you out. Making snap decisions got me in this mess.”
“Checking me out?”
Bud Lamm cocked his head, requesting privacy. They walked to the parking area. A line of tour buses howled at fast idle, to run air conditioners for absent passengers.
“You used to be a topnotch cop. That’s what your lawyer buddy Ricardo Martinez said.”
The engines were deafening, the air foul. Luis nodded an impatient yes.