“You’re good at your job,” Rachel said.
“What about him?” the guard said. “I came up from behind. Your guy ran right at the gun.”
The management of the hotel took note of the security guard’s report. They were impressed. No casino wants the media coverage that accompanies a murder on their front steps. This customer prevented that from happening.
The clincher was when the security chief interviewed Rachel Hagerty. He had heard of Hagerty Security in Los Angeles. Her father’s business made her one of the family. The chief told her to forget about hospital bills. All expenses for Ken Rose’s treatment would be sent to the hotel.
Doctors performed plastic surgery to erase the scar where the bullet grazed his forehead. Then, knowing they had carte blanche, they corrected the drooping eyelids and the sagging mouth. Some time later, when the bandages came off, Ken looked in a mirror and saw his old handsome self.
Rachel was impressed. She was driving him from the hospital back to their free room at the Excalibur. “If your wife sees you, she’s going to want you back.”
“When you called and told her I’d been wounded,” Ken reminded her, “did she rush to see me?”
“No. She said you’d done enough to wreck her life. She has other fish to fry, was the way she put it.”
For two days, Ken and Rachel had all their meals delivered to the room. On the third day, he said it was time. The roulette wheel had been allowed to run free long enough. So Ken skipped breakfast and lunch and went to the bar alone in the early afternoon to drink red wine. In order not to be a distraction, Rachel went for a drive.
They met an hour later. “Nothing happens,” he said. “I had three glasses of wine. Usually it works with one. I don’t feel the same.”
“Dalton’s bullet must have done something to your head. I’m sorry, Ken. Because of me, you’ve lost the magic.”
“Because of you,” he said, “I no longer have to see the future. Here and now suits me fine.”
Zora was dozing in the living room. She had consumed two beers on an empty stomach. A completed crossword lay beside her on the sofa. She should have gone to Vegas to see Ken in the hospital. How did he manage to land a rich woman? She herself was in limbo. She had her rent-free apartment, but there was no Al McGee to lift her out of her low-pay job.
A key turned in the lock. The door opened and Ken came into the room. He was accompanied by a pert young woman with mahogany hair. His face looked different; the dopey expression was gone.
“Did we wake you up? I came to get a few things. This is Rachel.”
“Take what you like. As long as I didn’t pay for it.”
“I see what you mean,” Rachel murmured as Ken went into the bedroom.
Zora got up. She approached Rachel. “I suppose he’s been telling you I’m the villain.”
“We have more important things than you to talk about.” Rachel turned away.
Zora picked up the lead slab they used as a doorstop. She drew it back, taking aim at the girl’s head. Suddenly, Ken was behind her, seizing her arm, swinging her so she was flying back onto the sofa. Her head struck the wooden arm, stunning her for a moment.
She opened her eyes. The apartment was empty. A key turned in the lock and Ken entered the room. He was accompanied by a pert young woman with mahogany hair. “Did we wake you up? I came to get a few things. This is Rachel.”
Zora did not question what was happening. It was useful to be given a preview of events so you could alter your behavior. In this case, all she had to do was pick up the lead weight a little sooner, and swing it a bit harder.
Interrupted Sentence
by John F. Suter
© 1994 by John F. Suter
As well as being an author of short mystery fiction, John Suter is a dedicated scholar of the form. He has provided this magazine with many excellent suggestions for reprint, so when he told us he had the “ultimate armchair detective story,” we took notice...
They were about to begin fastening the straps of the last chair he would ever sit in when Warren Johnson shifted his gaze to the window where the warden stood. “Hold on,” he said. “I have something important to tell you.”
The warden opened the door of the execution chamber. “Hold up a minute,” he said to the guards. To Johnson, he said, “You’ve had all your lasts. Quit stalling. We’ll go ahead, even if you talk yourself blue in the face.”
Johnson looked at him calmly. In spite of the pallor of five years since being sentenced, his was a memorable face, with deep-set black eyes under jet brows, high cheekbones, thin nose and lips, sharp chin.
“I know I might get only a few more minutes,” he answered, “but I have no illusions about the ending. I want to give you something.”
“Which is—?” demanded Warden Peters.
“The solution to the Bedford woman’s murder.”
The warden stared at him, no expression on his rough-cut face. Inwardly, he was alarmed. Could the slippery bastard be serious? Would his story, if he was allowed to tell it, get his sentence changed to life imprisonment? Peters was not bloodthirsty, but this one deserved what was coming.
“You have inside information?”
Johnson shook his head.
“This last week concentrated my mind, as the saying has it. I gave most of my attention to other things, chiefly the Bedford case. I know the answer, or I think I do. I’ll be glad to give my version, then you can go ahead.”
Six persons who were to be witnesses to the electrocution were watching through windows from another room overlooking the chamber. One of them, a short, rumpled reporter representing a pool for wire services and local papers, chuckled.
“The twisty SOB! Keeps ’em chasing their tails right up to the second they throw the switch. I’m gonna miss him.”
A slightly taller, solidly built woman in her mid-forties standing next to him remarked, “I don’t know as much about this Warren Johnson as I should. I have heard that he’s a serial killer, and he’s staved off execution for nearly five years. Have I missed something?”
The reporter looked at her. “You must not have been around much. Travel a lot?”
“Hardly at all,” she answered in a matter-of-fact tone. “I’m head nurse at General Hospital.”
He nodded. “Too busy. That figures. In those five years—”
He stopped abruptly. The warden was addressing the man in the chair, who seemed to have relaxed, his hands resting on its arms.
“I have no obligation to listen, Johnson. By law, I ought to go ahead and ignore your antics.”
“Suit yourself,” Johnson said. “I’m just offering a final good turn. Not that I’m in the least guilty of what they say I am. For all you know, they might never crack the Bedford case.”
Peters shuddered inside but let nothing show. He did not know what to think about the case. It was at a dead end, and he was glad that he was not investigating it. He glanced at the witnesses behind their window.
They were all watching intently, especially the reporter.
A wicked grin crossed the newsman’s face. He pointed to Johnson and clapped his other hand over his mouth. Then he pointed to the warden and drew the edge of his hand across his throat.
Peters got the message. If he refused to delay execution, to let Johnson reveal possibly vital information about a crime—
“All right,” he said. “So long as you realize this won’t stop what we started. Commence talking.”