Ms. T sank back into her chair.
“You see, the only evidence the police have is those fingerprints. But what they really prove is that Mr. P did not murder his wife. Unless he’s incredibly stupid. And Mr. P,” I said, “is not stupid.”
She blinked slowly. Her voice was like ice. “Whatever is your point?”
“I’m getting to that,” I said. “Mr. P cut the torte that night, after his wife was snotty about it. You were sitting right next to him. You dropped your napkin over the knife he used, picked it up, and put it in your purse. If anyone had noticed the knife missing from the table, so what? You wouldn’t use it. But no one did. So the next day, you returned to the house — realizing that Mr. P’s plan to take a walk provided the perfect opportunity for your ‘errand’ — and killed Mrs. Prescott with the same knife, carefully keeping the napkin around the handle that still bore Walter Prescott’s prints. No, you didn’t have a motive to kill Patricia, but your real victim wasn’t Patricia. It was Walter.”
She tried to laugh, but the noise she made didn’t qualify. “That’s absurd! You could never prove that!”
“Oh, really?” I asked. “There’s a lady who lives in the house closest to the dumpster. She does a lot of gardening in her backyard. Especially in the early spring. Especially in the early afternoon in the early spring. Her Yorkshire terrier barks at everyone who walks down that alley. Don’t you remember being barked at by a Yorkshire terrier?”
Ms. T was staring at me and a muscle under her left eye began to twitch.
I continued. “I’m so sorry I was late today, but this lady — her name is Pearl Carruthers, Mrs. Pearl Carruthers — was telling me the most fascinating things about Campanula persicifolia.” I sighed. “It made me just long for a yard. Oh, and can you guess what she said when I asked if she recognized a photo of you?”
I didn’t wait for a reply. What Mrs. C had said, over the hysterical barking of one of the most obnoxious examples of canine life I’ve ever met, was, “My goodness! My eyes are so bad, I really can’t see farther than that flowering crab — certainly not all the way to the dumpster, dear!”
I went blithely on. “Of course, Mrs. Pearl Carruthers doesn’t know — yet — why I was showing the photograph to her at all. Now, if that’s not good enough, I believe the police will find your fingerprints on the edge of the dumpster, where you grabbed it to steady yourself while you put the knife just far enough under the edge of something to make it look as if it had been hastily hidden.”
Her mouth opened and shut. “No,” she said. “I never touched the dumpster. Never touched it! I was much too careful to touch it!”
“Walter Prescott said you’ve never been in love,” I said. “But you are. You’re in love with Allied Enterprises. You just had to have it, didn’t you?”
For the second time, she started to cry. On this occasion, however, it did not surprise me. “I would never have gotten control,” she said. “Never! Walter Prescott is only fifty-eight. I had to get rid of him. He’d have run this place forever! It didn’t matter that I was better at it, didn’t matter that I’m the only one around here who knows how to get things done!”
“But in such a roundabout way,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “In such a roundabout way!”
She pulled herself together and asked me what would qualify as a big enough raise.
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said. “I think I’d rather just have my old boss back.”
That started her off again, but she calmed down before the police arrived. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought her indignation was completely sincere. They took her in for “questioning.” They won’t be able to hold her long without something more concrete than my suspicions. But then, it won’t take long to finish typing up the conversation that’s on my personal note recorder. I’m especially going to like transcribing Ms. T’s statement about being “the only one around here who knows how to get things done.”
Stainless Steal
by Mark Grenier
Poem © 1998 Mark Grenier
The Colossus of Lilliput
by James Powell
©1998 by James Powell
“James Powell ranks with Edward D. Hoch among contemporary mystery writers, and among the best of all time,” said William DeAndrea in Encyclopedia Mysteriosa. “Powell’s stories are crisp, well told, and always surprising.” Like Edward D. Hock, James Powell has made his career with the short story, not the novel, and has developed several popular series that have run in EQMM since the 1960s.
Somewhere in the early morning darkness a clock struck three. “Okay,” said M. M. Q. Contreras, sitting on the edge of her desk, “maybe Billy G. wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. But he was your friend.”
“I only kept that double-crosser around to run errands,” said Dockerty, nodding approval as she crossed her shapely legs.
“Like sending him to me with that cock-and-bull story about people stealing your precious antique clock?”
The crooked judge shrugged. “You can’t prove insurance fraud. Not unless you find the clock. Which you won’t. With Billy G. dead, I’m the only one who knows where it’s stashed.”
He lowered his voice and took a step toward her. “Look, I was in to Anselmo Zangari for a bundle betting the ponies and he was leaning pretty heavy. I was paying him off with the insurance money when I spotted Billy G. across the street, pretending to be winding his pocket watch. I know blackmail when I smell it. So I ducked out of the shop at the back and followed until Billy G. turned into an alley. When he stopped to check his watch I came up behind and gave him the working end of my knife. Then I ground the watch under my heel to establish the time of his death and scrounged up some friends who’ll swear I was with them when the deed was done.”
Contreras laughed her hard private-investigatrix laugh. “You just don’t get it, do you?” she said. “Anselmo Zangari, mob enforcer, tries to pass himself off as legit. Zangari’s Clock Repair and Cleaning, right? And he likes his little joke, does Anselmo. Remember the sign over his shop, the painted clock face and the words ‘Let Anselmo clean your clock real good’?”
“So?” demanded Dockerty.
“So Billy G. was always late. When I called him on it he blamed his cheap pocket watch. But the real truth is he came by Zangari’s shop every morning to reset his watch.”
“So?” repeated Dockerty, moving closer.
“So, like I said, it’s a painted clock. It always says ten after ten. Which sure puts a hole in your alibi. Unless I explain things to the police. Which I won’t.”
With the roar of a man who’d more than met his match, Dockerty drew his knife and lunged. But the savvy private investigatrix jammed a stiletto heel into the man’s left kneecap. He dropped like a stone and lay moaning and thrashing on the floor.
Contreras started to dial the police. Then, unsure of the legality of clamming up about Billy G.’s watch, she decided to call her lawyer first. When Narcissa’s sleepy voice came on the line Contreras smiled. “Yo, Shystress, did I wake you up?”
The three neon letters from the Virbitski School of the Dance sign outside her office window flashed, “TSK-TSK, TSK-TSK.”