2,68 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: Black Cat Weekly
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: Black Cat Weekly
- Sprache: Englisch
MYSTERIES / SUSPENSE / ADVENTURE
“Promised Land” by Andrew Welsh-Huggins [Michael Bracken Presents short story]
Security specialist Erie Hollar uncovers a sinister conspiracy on the moon’s Shackleton City. After discovering a body and surviving a brutal attack, Erie races against time to unravel the truth, dodging dangerous enemies and bureaucratic traps in a tense, moonlit sci-fi mystery.
“The Great Diet Duplicity,” by Hal Charles [Solve It Yourself Mystery]
Detective Kelly Stone investigates the theft of a cash prize at a dieting club’s annual weigh-in. Amid fire alarms and diet debates, can you solve the case before she does?
“Murder of a Slumlord,” by Marc Egnal [Short Story]
Detective Darryn Clark investigates the high-profile murder of a notorious slumlord in North Philadelphia. Amid a complex web of corruption and hidden motives, Darryn uncovers shocking secrets behind the crime.
“Velda and the Three Happy Housewives,” by Ron Miller [Short Story]
Private eye Velda’s latest case starts too close to home—just two floors down. What begins as a routine domestic disturbance quickly spirals into a tangled web of deceit, murder, and unlikely allies.
A Mediterranean Mystery, by Fred E. Wynne [novel]
A respectable English vicar finds himself embroiled in international intrigue and smuggling when he joins his wayward brother on a Mediterranean voyage. A thrilling tale of adventure, morality, and redemption.
SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY
“Materialist,” by Janet Fox [short story]
Barbara married for wealth, but after her grasping, elderly husband finally dies, a series of mysterious disasters unfolds. With a growing sense of dread, Barbara realizes the dead may hold more power than she ever imagined.
“The Elevator Operator,” by Donald M. Munro
[Barb Goffman Presents short story]
Hugo Sanz, a long-time elevator operator, now a sentient hologram, faces more than difficult passengers in “The Elevator Operator.” As technology threatens his existence, dark secrets from his past resurface, leading to an eerie showdown.
“The Tour Guide’s Tale,” by Anna Tambour [short story]
A quirky tour guide shares a bizarre and darkly humorous tale of a colleague’s strange encounter with eccentric travelers. The story spirals into unexpected absurdity, blending wit, mystery, and a little menace.
“Little Jimmy,” by Lester Del Rey [short story]
A man returns to his childhood home, where he encounters something far more unsettling than nostalgia—an inexplicable presence tied to his past. Little Jimmy, a mysterious figure, challenges everything he thought he understood about life, death, and ghosts.
“Mr. Biggs Goes to Town,” by Nelson S. Bond [short story, Lancelot Biggs series]
A space freighter crew faces unexpected challenges when they are reassigned to a critical mission involving pirates on the planetoid Iris. With Lancelot Biggs’ quirky genius leading the way, they must uncover a new resource to save the mission—and thwart the criminals.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Seitenzahl: 655
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
TEAM BLACK CAT
THE CAT’S MEOW
PROMISED LAND, by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
THE GREAT DIET DUPLICITY, by Hal Charles
MURDER OF A SLUMLORD, by Marc Egnal
VELDA AND THE THREE HAPPY HOUSEWIVES, by Ron Miller
A MEDITERRANEAN MYSTERY, by Fred E. Wynne
DEDICATION
INTRODUCTION, by John Betancourt
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
MATERIALIST, by Janet Fox
THE ELEVATOR OPERATOR, by Donald M. Munro
THE TOUR GUIDE’S TALE, by Anna Tambour
LITTLE JIMMY, by Lester Del Rey
MR. BIGGS GOES TO TOWN by NELSON S. BOND
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2024 by Wildside Press LLC.
Published by Black Cat Weekly.
blackcatweekly.com
*
“Promised Land” is copyright © 2024 by Andrew Welsh-Huggins and appears here for the first time.
“The Great Diet Duplicity” is copyright © 2022 by Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet. Reprinted by permission of the authors.
“Murder of a Slumlord” is copyright © 2024 by Marc Egnal and appears here for the first time.
“Velda and the Three Happy Housewives,” is copyright © 2024 by Ron Miller and appears here for the first time.
A Mediterranean Mystery, by Fred E. Wynne, was originally published in 1923.
“Materialist” is copyright © 1970 by Janet Fox. Originally published in Horror magazine, May 1970. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
“The Elevator Operator” is copyright © 2024 by Donald M. Munro and appears here for the first time.
“The Tour Guide’s Tale” is copyright © 2023 by Anna Tambour. Originally published in The Canterbury Nightmares, Crossroad Press, 2023. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Little Jimmy” is copyright 1957, 1985 by Lester Del Rey. Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, April 1959. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
“Mr. Biggs Goes to Town,” by Nelson S. Bond, was originally published in Amazing Stories, October 1942. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate.
TEAM BLACK CAT
EDITOR & PUBLISHER
John Betancourt
ART DIRECTOR
Ron Miller
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Barb Goffman
Michael Bracken
Paul Di Filippo
Darrell Schweitzer
Cynthia M. Ward
EDITORIAL BOARD
Thomas A. Easton
Ryan Hines
Vicki Erwin
Paula Messina
Richard Prosch
PRODUCTION
Sam Hogan
Karl Wurf
THE CAT’S MEOW
Welcome to Black Cat Weekly.
Tomorrow, my wife and I are planning to decorate for Halloween. It’s one of our favorite holidays, and we decorate pretty much every room in the house, plus the yard. With the stores selling Halloween merchandise (and candy!) earlier every year, it’s no wonder I’m already in a darkly festive mood. And some extra dark fantasies are already creeping into the magazine!
On the question of the new story listing format, 100% of people who wrote in voted in favor of it, so thanks to both of them. (If you don’t like it and didn’t let me know, it’s your own fault—it’s now here to stay.)
So, without further ado, here’s the complete lineup—
Cover Art: Ron Miller
MYSTERIES / SUSPENSE / ADVENTURE
“Promised Land” by Andrew Welsh-Huggins[Michael Bracken Presents short story]
Security specialist Erie Hollar uncovers a sinister conspiracy on the moon’s Shackleton City. After discovering a body and surviving a brutal attack, Erie races against time to unravel the truth, dodging dangerous enemies and bureaucratic traps in a tense, moonlit sci-fi mystery.
“The Great Diet Duplicity,” by Hal Charles[Solve It Yourself Mystery]
Detective Kelly Stone investigates the theft of a cash prize at a dieting club’s annual weigh-in. Amid fire alarms and diet debates, can you solve the case before she does?
“Murder of a Slumlord,” by Marc Egnal [Short Story]
Detective Darryn Clark investigates the high-profile murder of a notorious slumlord in North Philadelphia. Amid a complex web of corruption and hidden motives, Darryn uncovers shocking secrets behind the crime.
“Velda and the Three Happy Housewives,” by Ron Miller [Short Story]
Private eye Velda’s latest case starts too close to home—just two floors down. What begins as a routine domestic disturbance quickly spirals into a tangled web of deceit, murder, and unlikely allies.
A Mediterranean Mystery, by Fred E. Wynne [novel]
A respectable English vicar finds himself embroiled in international intrigue and smuggling when he joins his wayward brother on a Mediterranean voyage. A thrilling tale of adventure, morality, and redemption.
SCIENCE FICTION / FANTASY
“Materialist,” by Janet Fox [short story]
Barbara married for wealth, but after her grasping, elderly husband finally dies, a series of mysterious disasters unfolds. With a growing sense of dread, Barbara realizes the dead may hold more power than she ever imagined.
“The Elevator Operator,” by Donald M. Munro[Barb Goffman Presents short story]
Hugo Sanz, a long-time elevator operator, now a sentient hologram, faces more than difficult passengers in “The Elevator Operator.” As technology threatens his existence, dark secrets from his past resurface, leading to an eerie showdown.
“The Tour Guide’s Tale,” by Anna Tambour [short story]
A quirky tour guide shares a bizarre and darkly humorous tale of a colleague’s strange encounter with eccentric travelers. The story spirals into unexpected absurdity, blending wit, mystery, and a little menace.
“Little Jimmy,” by Lester Del Rey [short story]
A man returns to his childhood home, where he encounters something far more unsettling than nostalgia—an inexplicable presence tied to his past. Little Jimmy, a mysterious figure, challenges everything he thought he understood about life, death, and ghosts.
“Mr. Biggs Goes to Town,” by Nelson S. Bond[short story, Lancelot Biggs series]
A space freighter crew faces unexpected challenges when they are reassigned to a critical mission involving pirates on the planetoid Iris. With Lancelot Biggs’ quirky genius leading the way, they must uncover a new resource to save the mission—and thwart the criminals.
Until next time, happy reading!
—John Betancourt
Editor, Black Cat Weekly
PROMISED LAND,by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
If you’ve never seen Earth from the comfort of a Lunar Viewing Deck on the near side of the moon, you have my condolences. It’s a sight to behold.
If you’ve never seen Earth through blood smeared like the broad tail of a comet across an LVD triple-reinforced picture window, count yourself lucky.
The time was 23:12, nineteen minutes after my commsfon beeped with an FPA—a Foundation Proximity Alert. That’s a fancy way of saying that internal LVD sensors had detected a body on the floor.
Don’t worry: FPAs aren’t all that uncommon, or deadly.
As moon bases go, Shackleton City is no more or less violent than the baker’s dozen other bases scattered across the lunar surface. But we have, hands down, the nicest LVD. And for whatever reason, sneaking there with a romantic partner to do the deed in full view of Earth is a popular pastime. It’s even got a name: Joining the 288 Club, as in the moon’s distance from Earth in miles times a thousand. (This doesn’t make a lot of sense since the same act happens in people’s quarters all the time, though because of Shackleton’s subterranean living units, never in front of a window. So maybe that explains it.)
Trust me: no one in Shackleton City would care one way or the other except for the fact that LVD reservations are understandably hard to come by. As a result, an official visit requires a minimum of ten people, a rule routinely broken by couples who want the view—and the floor—all to themselves. As I’ve learned too well, hell hath no fury like a Shackleton City teacher who can’t book an LVD trip because the slots are reserved for a different kind of extracurricular activity. Those trips were less frequent these days thanks to bouts of childhood respiratory viruses emptying classrooms, but the threat of flaring tempers was always real.
Usually, I just chase the scofflaws off—allowing them to dress first unless I get a little attitude. But today, the man lying on the floor in front of me—balding, thick-waisted, in an unfamiliar blue jumpsuit—wasn’t going anywhere. Someone had bought him a one-way ticket to the LVD in the form of a yard-long titanium rod thrust through his neck. I shook my head as much at the paperwork ahead of me as the sight of the poor bastard’s remains. I stepped back and keyed my intra-base two-way.
“Go ahead, Erie.”
“Yeah. I need”—I considered for a moment—“a clean-up crew in the LVD. Um, stat.”
“Love birds get messy?”
“Something like that.”
I was about to explain the situation using as many codes as possible to throw off the bored teens who inevitably hack our radio conversations. At that moment I heard a sound behind me.
As I turned, I glimpsed a gleam of light on a shiny, cylindrical pipe rushing toward me. That was the last thing I remembered as my head exploded in pain and everything went as dark as the far side of the moon.
* * * *
Allow me to back up.
My full name isAdam Matthew Hollar, but everybody calls me Erie after the Earth lake I grew up near before escaping to the stars, or at least to our closest neighbor. By the time the pipe sent me reeling, I’d been in Shackleton City almost five years and considered it home.
My official title is Lunar Modular Construction Security Specialist Grade 7. On paper, my job is to ensure the safe delivery of materials for the ongoing expansion of living, food-production, and research facilities in the lava tube warrens that constitute, iceberg-like, the majority of Shackleton City. I was at the bottom of a security pecking order that started with the Big Boys—and Girls—of the Space Force MP Battalion. Hierarchically, the next rung down was supposed to be the Shackleton City civilian police patrol. But everyone understood that the actual No. 2 was the security detail of Luna Corp., the company that runs the city’s sulfur mining operations. Everyone, including some of the Space Force MPs, knew better than to mess with the LC guys with their sleek form-fitting red uniforms, black boots, and powerful 100,000-volt stun sticks they loved to waggle dismissively—and lewdly—at my comparatively useless flexible restraining clamps. At the bottom of this law enforcement ziggurat came schmucks like me. On paper, anyway.
In truth, I fit someplace in the middle. Over the years, I’ve traded enough favors up and down the lava tubes that I was considered an asset, someone called on to do those jobs no one else would touch.
Some of it was fun, like busting inter-base smuggling rings tied either to the MPs or Luna Corp., depending on who was paying me. You haven’t lived until you strand a team of smugglers on a lightly sabotaged rover just as moon night is falling and then roll across the gray, volcanic lunar landscape on your Tranquility Scooter, repair kit in hand, and cut a deal.
Some of it was less fun, like rousting lovebirds from the LVD. But after the day a newbie civilian cop walked in on Base Director Genna Genovese joining the 288 Club with a newly arrived congressman not technically her husband, the thankless task fell to me.
Over the years, I’ve been asked often why I stay in Shackleton City—and on the moon—when the brighter, more exotic, and definitely more lucrative horizons of the Mars Colony beckon. My ex-wife asked me enough times, right before she gave a last flip of her long brown hair, put her clothes back on, and hopped the next shuttle to the Red Planet with scarcely a goodbye. All I can say is that having grown up mostly homeless in Cleveland, often bunking in abandoned buildings absent a shred of light, there was something comforting about the all-consuming black and gray of our nearest neighbor.
Except when someone tries to kill me.
* * * *
I came to several hours later.
I opened my eyes and took in my surroundings: a gray-walled sick bay module dimly lit by the flashing red, blue, and green lights of a bank of monitors, several of which were attached to me by sickly yellow tubes. As I looked around, I struggled to reclaim the dream I’d awoken from, in which one of the red wolves of my childhood, a climate-change transplant from the swamps of Florida to the temperate hills of northeastern Ohio, was standing on its hind legs, peering into my reinforced crate of a shelter and baring its fangs in anticipation of dinner. There was something wrong with the wolf, but the mystery vanished as my dream faded.
Instead, I found myself staring into the eyes of another carnivore with a savage bite—Xochitl Rivera, my immediate supervisor.
“What the hell,” she said. “I’m already down two officers.”
“Nice to see you too, Supe. Good thing I’m worth three men alone. Did you bring flowers?”
“If by flowers you mean forms to fill out, sure.” She set a standard-issue lunar-gray tablet on the stand beside my bed. “What the hell happened up there?”
I was about to remark on her bedside manner when I noticed something wasn’t quite right about Xochitl’s eyes. Round and black as her long, ebony hair, they reflected—now I was really dreaming—something resembling concern.
Tucking the thought away, I reassembled my thoughts like the plastic building blocks meant to entertain the wheezing kids in the children’s sick ward and told her what I remembered, starting with the Foundation Proximity Alert, moving onto the discovery of the body and my radio call, and finally my encounter with a swinging pipe.
“Interesting,” Xochitl said when I concluded.
“Just for curiosity’s sake, how are a murder and an attack ‘interesting’?”
“Well, interesting in that this is the first I’m hearing of a body. Yours was the only one the Civvies found when they arrived. Good thing they were right around the corner.”
I tried to sit up, only to fall back as my headache discouraged the attempt like the blast from a soundwave. “But I called it in.”
“You called in a clean-up. All they found was you and a lot of blood—yours. There’s no video, naturally.”
Naturally. After the 288 Club incident with the base administrator discovered in flagrante delicto beneath the Earth—and a congressman—word came down to deactivate the LVD security cameras. The Foundation Proximity Alerts were a quiet compromise that for obvious reasons we didn’t advertise.
“Supe, that’s crap. I know what I saw.”
“Relax. I believe you. I’m just telling you what I read in the Civvies’ initial incident report.”
“Which said what?”
She produced her tablet and tapped here and there. Then hesitated. I could tell by her body posture something was off. I’m not above clandestinely studying my shapely supervisor, despite the fact she could tie me in knots and toss me into a depressurized air chamber without missing a beat. Maybe it was the uncharacteristic concern brightening those black eyes or the way she kept placing the tablet in her lap and picking it back up again. Something wasn’t right.
“Let’s see. It said you slipped and hit your head on a table, which was not surprising—according to the report—given the half-empty bottle of Moonshone beside you.”
“More crap,” I said, yelping as I tried unsuccessfully a second time to bolt upright. Although I was guilty of occasionally imbibing the cutely named spirit exclusively distilled in Shackleton City, I hadn’t done so on duty since, well, since Maggie left two years ago.
Taking a breath, I met Xochitl’s eyes and said, “Supe, a body doesn’t just disappear here. That would take time and effort. Not to mention being hell on the ventilation system.”
“Agreed. Which means something funny’s going on.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“Which is why I’m going to poke around, make some calls, send a few m-mails, while you get some rest. Clear?”
“Clear.”
It wasn’t a lie, exactly. I did intend to rest, to do what I needed to relieve my splitting headache. Right after I found out what the hell was going on.
* * * *
I left sick bay without proper medical dismissal an hour later, gingerly redressing, fitting my commsfon and restraining clamps onto my utility belt, and tiptoeing out. I was on a mission and couldn’t afford to waste any more time. I needed to figure out, in order: who hit me, setting me up with planted Moonshone in the process; where the body of the poor sucker I’d found was; and who stuck the titanium rod through his neck. And fast. Fortunately, I was not entirely without resources.
It’s true that the video feed to the LVD was disabled. That fact was the worst-kept secret in Shackleton City, which explained why unauthorized 288 Club attempts were so frequent. What almost no one knew about, Xochitl included, was the trail cam I secretly installed just outside the LVD entryway. It snapped a still photo a minute, m-mailing them directly to my commsfon. As long as nobody caught on camera triggered a foundation proximity alert, I tended to ignore them. Unless I needed a favor.
In that case, these photos came in handy whenever I required a requisition order to move quickly up the off-loading priority list. It’s amazing how sharing a photo of a cargo manager in charge and a “friend” sneaking into the LVD without the knowledge of their partners could free up a crate of life-support hoses, dust-impervious agility gloves, or sea bass eggs when previous efforts failed.
As soon as I was certain my sick bay departure wasn’t setting off alarms, I did my best Shackleton City low-gravity skip down the secondary trans-sectional tube toward Lunar Construction Module headquarters and my desk. But at the final tube intersection I turned in the opposite direction from headquarters, the last place I wanted to be right now, and headed for the library.
A quirk of life in Shackleton City was that despite the ability to download any piece of writing produced in any language in the past 3,000 years in under 2.5 seconds, a cadre of screen-weary bibliophiles—myself included—had managed to requisition an unused storage bay, outfit it with aluminum shelving, and fill it with paper tomes spirited from Earth. I was pretty sure that Maggie and Xochitl were the only people aware of my penchant for 20th-century detectives with the names of Archer, McGee, Spenser, and Millhone, and I intended to keep it that way. To wit: it was the last place anyone would think of looking for me.
I grabbed a dog-eared copy of Robert B. Parker’s Promised Land, found a seat on a fiber-optical transport trunk transformed into a bench in the far corner, discreetly pulled out my commsfon, tucked it inside the opened book, and started scrolling through photos.
I cursed aloud almost immediately. The photos were black, dark as a total solar eclipse. My trail cam had malfunctioned at the worst possible moment. No picture of the man whose body I’d found splayed in the LVD, nor of his assailant. No picture of me nineteen minutes later responding to the Foundation Proximity Alert; fortunately—or not—I’d been just around the corner when it went off. And of course, no picture of my attacker.
Finally, at 23:43—thirty minutes after someone clocked me with a pipe—the hallway and LVD portal were visible again.
Of all the luck, I thought, thumbing backward through the photos. Stymied by my own technology. I was about to put my commsfon away and concede defeat when one of the rarely functioning, third-generation LED tubes meant to illuminate the library flickered on overhead. Taking advantage of the extra light, I re-examined some of the photos. That’s when I saw it.
Just out of focus in the right-hand corner of the pictures, but still obvious to the trained eye, was the lower half of a saffron insignia adorning gloves worn by members of only one organization in Shackleton City.
The trail cam hadn’t malfunctioned.
Someone had draped a glove over the lens.
And with that realization, my sick bay dream of the red wolf took on a whole new meaning.
* * * *
Some would say that getting to the Moon from Earth is easier than penetrating Luna Corp. security. I’m not sure they’re wrong, especially given the administrator I was trying to see.
The logical way to travel to LC headquarters, not to mention the safest, was to maneuver within the confines of Shackleton City. Invariably, it’s a slow and tortuous path involving a couple of miles worth of elevators and trans-sectional tubes that could take you upwards of ninety minutes depending on the time of day. I had no time to waste, so I took an unauthorized shortcut.
As a Grade 7 specialist, I’m not supposed to have access to a rover outside normal working hours. Fortunately for me, the deals I cut between Shackleton City factions in the name of greasing the wheels of commerce paid ample dividends. As a result, twenty-five minutes after making the discovery in the library, I was suited up, through the airlock chamber serving the outside Shackelton rover pool, and motoring toward the bright-red oxidized aluminum Luna Corp. outer loading portal.
That was the easy part. The difficulty began at the portal, where a bored voice crackled in my ear, “No unauthorized entry after 17:00. Return to Sector Four.”
“I have a Sanction Code. I can transmit it.”
“No exceptions.”
“Pretty please?” I said, manipulating my cold-impervious surface tablet to send the message.
Five seconds later, the voice returned, the timbre pitched considerably higher.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a replicating photo virus. It’ll spread through your contacts in thirty seconds and m-mail everyone that picture if I don’t send a second code.” My tormentor was staring at a photo of old-fashioned Earth porn, which was strictly prohibited in Shackleton City and hence ubiquitous.
“Send the code.”
“Open the portal.”
“Not until you send the code.”
“Fifteen seconds.”
Eleven minutes after that, I walked unimpeded into the office of Luna Corp. security director Navah Nesbitt thanks to my unrivaled collection of electronic door lock keycards.
Nesbitt, a former Space Force MP whose red uniform showed off his ripped physique like an aluminum space blanket covering a bed of moon rocks, rose from his desk, surprise registering in his eyes.
“How’d you get in here?”
“Everyone knows the moon’s made of cheese. I pretended I was a rat. Fit right in.”
“Out, before I call security.”
“Funny, since you are security. I’ll make it fast. We need to talk about the body on the LVD.”
“What body?” Nesbitt had an excellent stone face, but the twitch in his right eye told me all I needed to know.
“Exactly. Except I know what I saw. And a few hours later, I also saw you lurking in my sick bay cubicle. The red uniform’s a giveaway, in case you were wondering. Then I saw this.”
I showed Nesbitt the photo of the glove adorned with the red Luna Corp. insignia hanging in front of the trail cam lens. A glove uncannily similar to the one on his right hand as he slowly made a fist.
Nesbitt’s eyes shifted from me to the glove to the door and back.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I would have laughed if the situation wasn’t so serious.
“Look, Nesbutt. I’m seeing double because of the hit to the head I took up there, not to mention that people are telling lies about on-the-job drinking. I’ll make it simple. Once I start showing pictures around of that body, whoever he was, and add in the fact someone was blocking a security camera with a Luna Corp. glove, it’s not going to look good.”
Bluffing about having a photo of the body was risky since I was guessing Nesbitt wasn’t above having me detained in a room below even the deepest lava tube. But his hesitation told me I had a little wiggle room, and I plunged ahead with another fabrication.
“I could give two buckets of sulfur dust who the guy is or why he was in the LVD. I just need to clear the paperwork before Genna Genovese starts climbing up my ass. Can you help me out or what?”
He took a moment to reply. “Okay, Erie. I’m sorry about the inconvenience. The gentleman you found, Mr.”—the slightest pause—“Smith, arrived unregistered on a shuttle two days ago. He was supposed to be doing a hush-hush drilling software update for us. Far as we can tell, he had too much to drink at Big Pizza Pie and made the wrong moves on the wrong supervisor’s wife. Things got a little ugly. We were dealing with our own paperwork before reporting it.”
“What about the guy who clocked me?”
“No idea,” he said, the epitome of innocence. “But I’ll tell you what. I know you’ve been waiting on a new 3D printer for the next subdivision housing units. How about I requisition one of ours to move things along? You go your way, we go ours, sorry for the mess?”
I didn’t have to fake my reaction; emotions were running high below the surface thanks to double-bunking that had lasted for weeks with the latest construction delay.
“Deal. Just tell me when and where.”
* * * *
We met in the Luna Corp. sulfur processing facility at 23:00 that night. I spent the hours beforehand dry-swallowing aspirin, avoiding Xochitl, and calling in one more favor to obtain a high-value piece of equipment no one outside of Space Force was supposed to possess.
I arrived at the appointed time. Nesbitt led me back through a warren of loaders and excavators to the hulking printer hidden in a far corner.
“Just initial here and here and she’s all yours,” he said, thrusting a tablet toward me. “We’ll arrange transport first thing tomorrow.”
I glanced at the tablet but didn’t take it, knowing perfectly well that it disguised a hot stun stick. Once paralyzed on the floor like a sea bass escaped from its galley tank, it was only a matter of time before my neck met its own titanium rod.
“Sorry,” I said, stepping back. “New plan.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Mr. ‘Smith.’ Or should I say Kwan. I checked around. He wasn’t a software engineer. He was an IGHO health inspector trying to figure out why so many Shackelton City kids are sick.” The Inner-Galaxy Health Organization was a pain in the ass, not to mention a thorn in my side, but their intentions were good. “He wasn’t unregistered—he was undercover. And he was about to identify crappy containment procedures from your sulfur operations as the source of dust in children’s lungs. You’d be looking at a months-long delay if that news came out.”
I’ve seen miles-long sun flares tamer than the rage that filled Nesbitt’s eyes at that moment. He revealed his stun stick and stepped toward me.
“Kwan meddled where he shouldn’t have. He got what was coming to him. Just like you’re going to, Erie.”
“Or you.” Faster than you can say Sea of Tranquility, I whipped out a restraining clamp and locked Nesbitt’s right hand to the printer’s data transmission cable. Before he could utter a word in protest, I retrieved the item I had called several chits in for. No bigger than a remote control powering a two-bedroom life support system. But dangerous as hell.
“No—” Nesbitt said, eyes widening.
“Afraid so.” I depressed the remote’s red button, and a loud, ear-piercing klaxon sounded as emergency lights painted the room in blue and white pulsating flashes.
“Turn it off!”
The airlock alarm and lights meant that less than a minute remained before the warehouse surface portal activated by the remote opened with nothing between us and the lunar surface.
“For God’s sake, Erie!”
I took a step toward the warehouse exit door. “Tell me where Kwan’s body is.”
“I don’t know!”
“Sure about that?” I said, taking another step back as Nesbitt strained unsuccessfully at the hand clamp.
“Erie!”
“Last chance,” I shouted over the screaming klaxon.
* * * *
“You’re demoting me?” I said in disbelief.
“I had no choice,” Xochitl said. “You disobeyed a direct order.”
“I did rest up,” I protested. “I just did things in reverse order.”
She rolled her big, black eyes and leaned back in her chair. Her egg-shaped office’s luminous, cool-green walls would have been restful but for the red I was seeing.
A day had passed. A team of Space Force MPs and Civilian Patrol uniforms found Max Kwan’s body stashed beneath three tons of sulfur dust bound for the purification tanks. Nesbitt—whose last-second confession saved him from lunar exposure—was in custody awaiting transport back to Earth.
“Save it for the report,” Xochitl said. “We have more important things to deal with.”
“Like what?”
“You know that shipment of hydroponic lights we’ve been waiting on?”
“Yeah, like for two months. What about it?”
She rocked in her chair, unable to suppress a smile. “Turns out they’re sitting in a locker over in New Amundsen. Port Control won’t release them because the entry tax wasn’t paid, which is funny since I have an m-mail that claims it was. Meanwhile, the New Amundsen deputy director just installed a state-of-the-art hyperbaric jacuzzi. Those things aren’t cheap.”
“You’re saying?”
“Either get me that entry tax or get me those lights.”
“And you’ll deep-six the demotion?”
“Don’t push your luck, Erie.”
I thought about responding but took her advice instead. One thing about life in Shackleton City, you never know what fortunes the next day—or the next Earth viewing—might bring.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the Shamus, Derringer, and ITW-award-nominated author of the Andy Hayes Private Eye series and the standalone thriller, The End of the Road. Editor of Columbus Noir, his short fiction has appeared in multiple magazines and anthologies.
THE GREAT DIET DUPLICITY,by Hal Charles
When State Police Detective Kelly Stone reached the Great Falls Park Pavilion, Mary John Kennedy tossed her regular Pepsi can into the recycling bin and ran out to the stopping cruiser. “Thanks for coming so quickly, detective,” said the thin woman. “We really need your help.”
“I was on my lunch break when the dispatcher relayed your call,” explained Kelly. “What’s the problem?”
Mary John led her through the Pavilion and into a shop called the Rec Room. “This is the annual meeting of the Diet Club,” said Mary John, opening the door. “Each year we meet on this date, describe our dietary struggles, and weigh in.”
Kelly spotted four women sitting around a table. From the wine and sandwiches on it, they looked like they were having a picnic. “Peer pressure is an interesting incentive for dieting, but I don’t understand why you called me.”
Krissy Taylor stood up from her seat at the table and hugged her big sister. “If I hadn’t known you took a lunch break at this hour, I wouldn’t have bothered you for something so mundane as the Pound Challenge.”
Kelly spotted a large scale behind her sister. “Do you want me to check the scales, present the award to the winner…?”
“Neither,” said another woman standing up, whom Kelly recognized as Tali Byrnes, Krissy’s neighbor. “The true incentive for the best dieter is cash.”
“At each annual meeting,” revealed Krissy, “we each toss a thousand dollars into a sald bowl.”
“And as ABBA sang,” concluded Kelly, “‘the winner takes it all.’”
“Exactly,” said a tall blonde with a thin waist. “I’m Jenna Jones, this year’s treasurer, and it’s my fault the five thousand dollars is gone.”
“I blame it on that dang fire alarm, Detective,” said a redheaded woman. “I’m Alex Angel, and if the alarm hadn’t gone off when it did, none of this would have happened.”
“The alarm occurred just before the official weigh-off,” said Mary John Kennedy.
“Unfortunately, when that loud alarm sounded, Sis,” said Krissy, “everyone skedaddled out of here for their lives, and no one remembered we had just tossed our cash into that bowl in the middle of the table.”
“And no one saw anyone enter or leave the Rec Room in the time you were gone?” asked Kelly.
“I don’t know about you,” said Jenna, “but I didn’t look back until I was a quarter mile away.”
“Same here,” said Tali.
“I didn’t know if the alarm was for a fire or a bomb,” admitted Alex.
“I think my Keto diet would have won,” said Mary John. “I tortured myself with it.”
“Nonsense,” said Krissy. “I stuck so close to my Mediterranean diet that I was a shoo-in. Anybody for fresh fruit?” She held up a plastic bowl.
Tali chimed in. “The Flexitarian diet is by far the best. In fact, I brought a steak sandwich here today.”
“Ugh!” said Jenna. “Girls, be serious. My Vegetarian Diet is scientifically undeniable. Look at my figure I owe to this salad.” She popped the top on a plastic bowl.
“Are you auditioning for the Scarecrow Hall of Fame?” asked Alex snidely.
“I’ll bet your pajamas have only one stripe,” snapped off Tali.
“Not that it matters,” said Jenna, “but even without the prize money, I’d like to see which of us was most effective on our respective diets.” She pulled out a notebook. “In fact, as club treasurer, I have the starting weights in last year’s minutes.”
“Fine,” said Mary John, stepping on the scales.
When the competition was over, Krissy Taylor was declared the winner of the Pound Challenge. “I would announce that I am donating the pot to my favorite charity, but there is no pot—just an empty bowl.”
“If only Detective Stone could figure out who took the money,” said Jenna, thinking aloud.
“Well, I could have you all empty your purses and picnic baskets,” said Kelly, “or I could get the lab people down here to check the fingerprints on the fire alarm, but”—she paused for effect—“I think I know the culprit.”
SOLUTION
Working on the premise that someone who would violate her own diet would have no qualms stealing money, Kelly fingered Mary John, who, despite being on a Keto Diet, greeted her drinking a sugary cola.
MURDER OF A SLUMLORD,by Marc Egnal
Darryn had just introduced himself to Naomi Belkin, when the call came in that there was a shooting on the 1700 block of Wingohocking Street. Naomi was shadowing Darryn that month as the next step in becoming a detective. Darryn slapped the flashing light on the roof of his unmarked Toyota, and the two took off together for the crime scene, which was only a few minutes away from 22nd Division headquarters.
Gunshots on Wingohocking were hardly a surprise. It was a particularly violent street in crime-ridden North Philadelphia. A block to the east of the shooting lay one of the city’s most notorious drug markets.
The surprise was that both victims—one killed, one wounded—were White. Darryn recognized the corpse: Edmund Herlihy, the “notorious slumlord,” as the Philadelphia Inquirer would describe him in its evening edition. The wounded individual was an official from Licensing and Inspection who was accompanying Herlihy. The two cops assigned to protect the landlord had been caught off guard. The shots came from a second-floor window across the street where someone with a high-powered rifle had been waiting.
The perp had escaped. Philly is a city of rowhouses with back alleys. The shooter had gone out the backdoor to a waiting car and driven away.
“What strikes you as unusual about this shooting,” Darryn asked Naomi.
She had Googled Herlihy and skimmed the articles about him, which included the Inquirer’s three-part series about slumlords. “The only thing unusual,” she responded, “is that someone didn’t shoot this lowlife sooner. Everyone in this neighborhood had a good reason to hate this guy. He turned up, someone recognized him, and bang, that’s the end of a villain. I doubt if we’ll solve this one, too many suspects.”
“Okay,” said Darryn. “That’s a good start. But step back for a moment. If this was a spur-of-the-moment reaction, what kind of gun would the shooter have used?”
“Probably a handgun,” she answered.
“Would they be waiting at a second-floor window with a high-powered rifle?”
“What are you getting at?” Naomi asked.
“There’s more to this shooting than meets the eye,” he replied.
* * * *
As they got back into the car, Darryn remarked, “Welcome to the jungle.”
“Isn’t that politically incorrect?” she retorted.
“I meant that term as descriptive, not pejorative,” he said. “You must realize I’m half Black.”
She was about to say that Blacks could be racist, but she was startled by his polished language and odd assertion. There was no such thing as “half Black,” not in “one drop tells all” America. His complexion was perhaps a shade lighter than hers. But no one would view him as anything other than as a large, neatly groomed African American man.
She smiled at the absurdity of his statement. “What’s the other half?” she asked.
“White and Jewish,” he said.
“That makes no sense,” she replied. “And aren’t those two quarters?” She laughed as she followed him down that rabbit hole.
“Well, it makes sense to me,” he said firmly.
Darryn Clark was indeed born to a Black father and a White Jewish mother. His father, Josiah Clark, was a kidney specialist who taught at Penn Medical School and practiced at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Until he was in his early teens, Darryn assumed his dad was a surgeon (he wasn’t), who spent his days in a real-life version of the game Operation, in which you used tweezers to pull out body parts like the funny bone.
His mother, Riva Lipsky, was an auditor at Wells Fargo Bank. Darryn was in his 20s when he finally understood what she did. He knew from her friends that she excelled at her work.
He had two older sisters: the three children were born four years apart. Thanks to his mom, they all went to shul and hadb’naimitzvahs. The family was aggressively liberal, sparring at the dinner table about racism and welfare reform. Being the youngest, Darryn remained a bystander for many years before plunging into those debates.
As a teenager, Darryn realized that he was the odd man out in a family of strivers. Sarah, the older sister, entered medical school after graduating from Penn. Micah grabbed top honors at Bryn Mawr and then began the study of law, developing an extraordinary expertise in the intricacies of commercial real estate. Darryn had very different plans. In his last year at Temple University, he reluctantly shared with his family his decision to enrol in the police academy. He felt kinship with his gay friends who hesitated to come out to their parents.
Josiah and Riva were polite when he broke the news, and politely questioned the wisdom of his choice, noting how dangerous and futile the job would be. Less politely they urged him to aspire higher after four years and good grades at Temple.
You didn’t need a college degree to become a Philadelphia police officer. The educational requirement was high school graduation, or its equivalent, and the ability to read at a 10th grade level (it was tested). His parents were not assuaged when he told them his goal was to become a detective, not to remain a cop on the beat.
Sarah summed up what Josiah and Riva didn’t quite say, “What the F, baby brother?”
Despite everyone’s qualms, except his, Darryn breezed through the 38 weeks of police academy (he was fit as well as smart), and accepted an assignment in the 22nd police district, one of the two most violent in the city. There he would stay, getting to know the residents, who were puzzled by, but liked this large, good-natured cop.
After five years he aced the departmental tests and interviews and became a detective. That was in 2014—Darryn had just turned 28. During the ensuing years he had mentored one prospective detective; Naomi was the second.
* * * *
Darryn returned to 22d division headquarters and met with the captain. Darryn had a grudging admiration for Lachlan Taylor as a straight shooter, a long-serving cop who had shown an extraordinary ability to adapt to changing times.
“You’re going to take point on this murder,” Lachlan told him. “Broad Street,” he added, referring to police headquarters, “will give you all the resources you need.”
Lachlan saw the wry look on Darryn’s face and asked, “Is there a problem?”
“I think there is,” Darryn replied. “Right now, I’m investigating the murders of five young Black men. I haven’t heard any offers of assistance. And now we’re making the killing of this White scumbag a priority?”
“Clark, I agree with you,” Lachlan said. “On some level it stinks. But this comes from several levels above my paygrade.” Here he paused and lowered his voice, adding, “And we both know there’s more to this case than first meets the eye.”
Darryn agreed although he hadn’t shared his thoughts with anyone. He nodded and told Lachlan: “Okay. I’ll start off with Naomi and if I need more people, I’ll get back to you.”
Darryn explained to Naomi the division of labor. He would talk to neighbors, while Naomi would go to Herlihy’s Market Street office and get copies of any threatening letters.
Speaking to “neighbors” actually meant visiting Charmaine Braxton, who lived a few blocks away from where the shooting occurred.
Charmaine was sitting on her stoop when Darryn pulled up. Early May in Philly brought warm days. “Detective Clark, I’ve been expecting you,” she said. “I’ve even made some of my special lemonade for you.”
“I’ll have a sip,” Darryn replied. Charmaine always added more ingredients than lemons, sugar, and water.
The two had known each other for years. Charmaine had four sons, one of whom, Enos, had been killed in a drive-by shooting. The murderers were never caught. Another son, Zander, had been a handful as a youngster and, occasionally, in trouble with the law, but he was also, Darryn felt certain, a mathematical prodigy. Darryn went to bat for him, meeting with the head of the math department at Temple. After Zander tested off the charts, Temple offered him a full scholarship and a room in the dorm.
“How’s Zander doing?” he asked.
“Staying out of trouble, thank the good Lord—and I give thanks to you as well.” She continued: “You’re here about that shooting on Wingohocking, I don’t think it’s a local boy. Too much patience and planning involved. It doesn’t sound like this community.” She laughed at her own observation.
“And how the hell did anyone know that sonofabitch was going to be there?” she asked. Darryn wondered that himself.
Charmaine continued: “Nobody around here shed any tears. But I haven’t heard a word from anybody boasting about it. And trust me, they would if they had pulled it off.”
“You’re saying what I’m thinking,” Darryn said.
“And Darryn,” Charmaine replied, now using his first name, “Why the fuss about this one White dude, when no one did shit for Enos?”
“Just what I said to the captain,” Darryn told her.
Darryn called Naomi to see how she made out at Herlihy’s office. “His files have a ton of angry letters,” she said. “We have a lot of suspects to pursue in this case.”
“Any computers in that office?” Darryn asked.
“Just one laptop. The manager told me the hard drive has been erased.”
“Love that passive voice,” Darryn commented. Naomi wasn’t sure what he meant.
“We’ll get a warrant for the laptop,” Darryn continued. “Sometimes techs can find data even after a wipe. I have one more person to speak with, then we can decide on next steps.”
Darryn called Sandor Kaminski, the Inquirer reporter who had written the story about Herlihy’s death and published the series on Philadelphia slumlords. Those articles had made Herlihy’s name and face well known. Darryn had been friends with Sandy since they went to Temple together and knocked about on the basketball court. More than once they had cooperated in criminal investigations.
“I thought you’d be calling,” Sandy said when he answered his phone.
“Am I that predictable?” Darryn responded. “I keep hearing that from people. Let’s get together. I think we can help each other.”
They met the next day at Darryn’s favorite lunch spot, the Green Eggs Café on 18th Street. Darryn had never tried anything stronger than weed, but his yen for the lox and bagel platter at the Café bordered on an addiction.
“What do you have to trade?” Sandy asked. He held two slips of paper in his hand.
“Nothing much yet,” Darryn said, “but I’m moving away from local gangbanger to premeditated kill. Work with me and you’ll get the exclusive and a heads-up before we announce anything.”
Sandy handed him slip number one. “Herlihy’s home address?” Darryn said. “That’s not worth much. I could find it in three, maybe five minutes.” Herlihy lived in the upscale suburb of Gladwyne.
Sandy pushed slip number two across the table. “Holy shit!” Darryn exclaimed. “How did you ever get this?” It was for a numbered bank account in the Cayman Islands. Sandy’s response was a broad smile.
“Okay,” said Darryn, “I can’t tell you everything I find. But I’ll update you as much as I’m allowed. Please do the same if you have any leads you want me to follow. This is very helpful.”
* * * *
Darryn told Naomi that their next step would be visiting Herlihy’s house in Gladwyne. Zilllow estimated that the home, really an estate, was worth $2.6 million, a far cry from the North Philly properties he owned. Aware that someone had tampered with the computer at Herlihy’s center city office, Darryn decided not to call ahead but simply turn up with a search warrant for relevant materials.
As they started out, Naomi asked, “Is this really the best use of our time? Aren’t you overlooking the logical suspects? You may have fallen prey to confirmation bias. That means leaping to conclusions and ignoring other possibilities.”
Darryn responded, “I know the definition of confirmation bias. There are some developments I can’t share with you right now.”
Naomi started to say, “A fine mentor you are. How do you expect me to become a detective if you keep secrets from me?” Twice she rehearsed those sentences in her mind, but finally kept them to herself. She had always been a “say what first comes into your head” type of person, a trait that had both helped and hurt her in her career. Maybe becoming more circumspect was one the lessons she was learning.
When they pulled up at Herlihy’s residence, a beautiful Georgian set down a tree lined lane, Darryn asked her: “What do you observe?”
“This guy was rich, really rich,” she said. “He could not possibly have gotten this house from the rent on those ghetto properties.”
There were several cars parked along the driveway. Not the best time, Darryn realized. He knocked on the door and showed the search warrant. Beatrice, Herlihy’s widow, was livid. “How dare you! How dare you!” she shouted at him. “You should be out there catching the characters who killed Ed, not bothering us just days after his death.”
Ed’s teenage son, Wallace, who stood beside his mother, was even more vituperative. “All you people ever do is slander my father,” he said. “He provided housing for the poor who would otherwise be living on the street. And those people, far from being grateful, made a mess of his homes.”
Darryn wondered about Wallace’s reference to “you people” and “those people.” With two Black officers standing in the doorway, those comments skated on thin ice.
“We’ll finish as quickly as we can,” Darryn said. “If you can show us his office, we’ll begin there.” When Beatrice hesitated, he added, “Otherwise, we’ll have to ask everyone to leave the house while we conduct our search.”
The office was another target-rich environment with a computer, three large ledgers, and a filing cabinet. Darryn called for a police van to help him carry away those materials.
“WTF,” said Naomi, using the acronym, rather than spelling out those words. “What’s going on here? How did Herlihy make his money?”
“That’s what we’re finding out,” Darryn said.
When they got back to division headquarters, Darryn went into Lachlan’s office, closing the door behind him. “Captain,” he said, “we may have a problem.” Lachlan did not look surprised.
Darryn continued: “Here’s my best guess about what happened. Very few people knew about the time and place of Herlihy’s visit. One of those people wanted Herlihy dead, and they figured the ideal spot for the killing would be a North Philly street where he was widely hated. Careful planning is the only way you can explain an assassin with an assault weapon waiting on the second floor across from the first home on his schedule. The visit was kept secret from the public.”
Lachlan said: “That’s a bold, even dangerous, accusation. And it sounds like you don’t know who or why. Sort that out and we can talk again.”
“Given the explosive nature of this case, I trust you’ll keep it secret for now?” Darryn said.
“I will,” Lachlan replied.
“Does the department have a good forensic accountant?” Darryn asked. “There are three ledgers that need deciphering.”
“That’s another problem,” Lachlan said. “We often outsource that work. Find out what firm was assisting Herlihy before you take any steps.”
* * * *
Darryn had looked over the ledgers, hoping to find an insight into Herlihy’s business. But he could make no sense of them: they appeared devoid of names and dates. Still, he had an idea, and checked the three volumes out of the evidence room where they were being stored along with the other seized materials.
He packed the ledgers into his backpack and drove to his parents’ home. They still lived in their big family house in Powelton Village, the prosperous neighborhood near the Penn campus. Both parents were in their early seventies, working a few days a week as consultants.
They greeted him warmly. “How are your kidneys?” he asked his dad.
“Mine or the ones I treat?” Josiah replied, laughing with his son.
“It’s wonderful to see you,” Riva said, hugging her son. “We miss you. Are you so busy you can’t drop in more often for a meal?”
“I was just home two weeks ago for Passover.”
“Three weeks ago,” Riva said. “And what about bringing your assistant here for dinner?”
“Naomi is not an assistant. She’s someone I’m mentoring. I will think about inviting her. Promise.”
Darryn continued. “Anyhow, mom, I’m partly here on business. Is there someplace we can talk privately?” He brought out the ledgers.
“It looks important, and very hush hush,” she added to Josiah. “Let’s go into the dining room. We can shut the doors.”
He explained the gravity of the situation and the need for confidentiality. “What can you puzzle out from these volumes?” he asked.
Riva looked over one ledger, then the second, and the third. She did so in silence, shaking her head slowly. She removed her glasses and turned to Darryn: “These are written in an elaborate code. Whoever created them didn’t want anyone understanding their business. At the same time, I’m convinced, the crook wanted to keep track of the money that came in and went out. Leave them with me for a few days, I’ll see if I can crack the code. But no promises.”
Darryn promised to return later in the week. Meanwhile, he asked Naomi to go to Licenses and Inspections to find out how many outstanding work orders there were on Herlihy’s buildings. She came back the next day, in shock.
“There are over two thousand! Every imaginable complaint from plumbing to electrical, from roofs to rodent infestations. Several of his buildings are zoned for single families and he’s renting them as triplexes. How was this guy not jailed?”
Darryn had no answer. Not yet.
At the end of the week, he sat down with Riva again. “I’ve figured out a few things, but mysteries remain,” she said.
“Look at what he did,” she continued. “Every third, seventh, and twelfth line is fake. You have to eliminate them to get the columns to add up. These three columns hold the dates, with the day-month-year hidden in the midst of random digits. There are no names, but what must be the payouts go to nine different individuals each of whom is identified with a five-digit code.”
Darryn nodded.
“But what’s most interesting is the source of his funds. There are hundreds of payments between $17,000 and $23,000. I have a guess about what that is—but you know who could surely tell us is your sister, Micah. She’s the expert on real estate in this city.”
“If those amounts are for properties, that’s absurdly cheap, even for Philadelphia,” Darryn said. Then he exchanged a look of awareness with his mother, “Except for abandoned properties.” He laughed at what must come next. “Okay, let’s call Micah. I trust my family far more than anyone in the police department.”
Micah arrived about an hour later. She had to put her three-year-old to bed. She gave Darryn a hug and her mom two kisses. “What’s this super-important, super-secret matter about?”
Together Riva and Darryn filled her in. “Brother, if you’ve discovered what I think you have, you’re in a lot of doo-doo, deep doo-doo,” Micah said. “This looks like serious corruption in the Sheriff’s Office.”
Darryn took several deep breaths. His heart was racing.
“Okay, let me lay it out for you,” Micah said. “In Philly the police and the Sheriff’s Office oversee the same geographical area. After all, we live in the city and county of Philadelphia. You have some idea what the police do. The Sheriff’s Office protects the courts, serves arrest warrants, transports prisoners—and handles the foreclosure and sale of abandoned houses. Every year between four and five thousand buildings fit that category.”
“Rarely does anyone buy those houses,” she continued, “So, they are boarded up or bulldozed. That’s why you see the checkerboard of green spaces in many neighborhoods.”
“Here’s where it gets interesting and fits with what mom discovered,” Micah said. “For each of those abandoned houses, the Sheriff’s Office gets between seventeen and twenty-three thousand dollars to cover expenses. The formula is complicated, but the three levels of government provide those funds. Now imagine if a portion of those homes existed only on paper—someone could pocket a lot of money fraudulently.”
Darryn nodded. The picture was becoming clearer. Herlihy clearly had masterminded the scheme. He oversaw the books and the disbursement of funds. Together Herlihy and the corrupt officials in the Sheriff’s Office must have concocted a lot of phony names to serve as owners of those nonexistent homes.
“And you can be sure his buddies in the Sheriff’s Office shielded him from prosecution for his many offenses,” Darryn observed, as the other missing pieces began to fit in place. “Being a slumlord, with a few real houses in his name, became simply a sideline. But it’s likely how he got involved in this scheme in the first place.”
Micah nodded. “One day Herlihy got greedy,” she speculated, “or there was a falling out among thieves, and his partners did him in.”
“Great work. A banner day for the Lipsky-Clark team,” Darryn said. “I’d like to bring all this to my captain, who I believe is one of the good guys. Mom, are you okay meeting Lachlan Taylor? You’re the only one who can explain the ledgers.”
“When you first thought of becoming a police officer,” Riva sighed, “we warned you about that step. Now you’re dragging us all down to ruination.”
“Ruination?” said Darryn. “Mom, you’ll be a folk hero—‘Super Auditor slays the crime boss.’ But seriously, we’ll keep your name out of the paper if you want.”
“Micah, we’ll definitely protect you on this one,” Riva said. “When I meet with Mr. Taylor, I’ll present the information you shared with us as if I knew it all along.”
Lachlan came to the Powelton Village house the next day—a Saturday. Darryn told him it was necessary if he wanted to know the who and why in this case. He carefully listened to the information Riva and Darryn presented. “It’s a strong case,” he said. “One I want to present to the D.A. But Mrs. Clark—”
“Riva Lipsky,” she corrected, “Please call me Riva.”
“Riva, you’ll have to be at that meeting to explain these ledgers.”
She agreed.
It was in fact a strong case, made stronger when the tech experts in the police department cracked the encryption on the computer seized from Herlihy’s house. They discovered the names of the seven men and two women receiving payments. The group included the sheriff himself. The files recovered from the computer in the Market Street office added important details.
The case became stronger still when one of the men flipped on the others in return for a lighter sentence and exclusion from murder charges. He claimed he didn’t know who ordered the hit. But he did admit Herlihy’s demand that they expand the number of “ghost houses” made them all nervous. And maybe, just maybe, there were discussions about bumping him off before the scheme got totally out of hand.
The US Justice Department got a court order for the Cayman Islands account, where Herlihy had stashed millions.
The lengthy, exclusive story Sandy wrote in the Inquirer left out Riva’s name, simply referring to an “accountant” who helped decipher the books.
Darryn did bring Naomi home for a dinner.
“What a lovely young woman,” Riva said after Naomi left. “I hope we get to see her again.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marc Egnal is a retired professor, living in Toronto, and author of several history books on the US and Canada. His work has been published in Freedom Fiction Journal, LowestoftChronicle, and Dark Winter Literary Review. When not writing, he can be found walking his French bulldog, Holden, or playing with grandchildren.
VELDA AND THE THREEHAPPY HOUSEWIVES,by Ron Miller
It’d been preying on me somewhat that just about every oneof my cases had originated within a block of my apartment. So I gave up beer for a week, scraped together a few bucks and took out an ad in the paper. So where did my next case come from? Apartment 1A, two floors below mine.
Doesn’t that just figure?
Worse yet, it was three o’clock in the morning when I was awakened from a sound sleep by someone shrieking “Murder! Murder!” Served me right for leaving my window open, but it was the middle of August for God’s sake.
Whoever it was wouldn’t shut up, so I threw on my kimono and went out to the hall to see what the hell was going on. Most of my neighbors were already there. None of them looked any happier than I was at being awakened in the middle of the night.
“What’s going on, Miss Bellinghausen?” asked Mr. Arkady, the book dealer who lives in the apartment directly across from my own. How was I supposed to know?
“I have no idea,” I replied, heading down the stairs, since that’s where all the yelling was coming from. I live on the third floor of the Zenobia Arms and by the time I got to the ground floor I had a half dozen people following me.
