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- Herausgeber: Wildside Press
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
Our 72nd issue is going to please a lot of our mystery readers. Not only do we have an original tale from the greatr Dave Zeltserman, courtesty of Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken, but we havca a terrific tale by Vicki Weisfelt, courtsey of Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman…plus a classic Sexton Blake mystery and the second Charlie Chan novel! (And, of course, a solve-it-yourself mystery from Hal Charles. Science fiction & fantasy fans won’t be disappointed, either. We have a new Count Czarny story from Phyllis Ann Karr, plus classics by John Barrett, Murray Leinster, Theodore Sturgeon, and George O. Smith. Great stuff.
Here’s the lineup:
Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:
“When Pigs Fly,” by Dave Zeltserman [Michael Bracken Presents short story]
“Yard Sale Jitters,” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery]
“New Energy,” by Vicki Weisfeld [Barb Goffman Presents short story]
“A Back-room Mystery,” by Hal Meredith [Sexton Blake short story]
The Chinese Parriot, by Earl Derr Biggers [Charlie Chan novel]
Science Fiction & Fantasy:
“Morning Star,” by Phyllis Ann Karr [Count Czarny short story]
“The Long Way Back,” by John Barrett [short story]
“The Devil of East Lupton, Vermont,” by Murray Leinster [short story]
“Memory,” by Theodore Sturgeon [short story]
“Quarantine,” by George O. Smith [novelet]
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Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
THE CAT’S MEOW
TEAM BLACK CAT
WHEN PIGS FLY, by Dave Zeltserman
YARD SALE JITTERS, by Hal Charles
NEW ENERGY, by Vicki Weisfeld
A BACK-ROOM MYSTERY, by Hal Meredith
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
THE CHINESE PARROT, by Earl Derr Biggers
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
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
MORNING STAR, by Phyllis Ann Karr
THE LONG WAY BACK, by John Barrett
THE DEVIL OF EAST LUPTON, VERMONT, by Murray Leinster
MEMORY, by Theodore Sturgeon
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
QUARANTINE, by George O. Smith
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2022 by Wildside Press LLC.
Published by Wildside Press, LLC.
wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com
*
“When Pigs Fly” is copyright © 2023 by Dave Zeltserman and appears here for the first time.
“Yard Sale Jitters” is copyright © 2023 by Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet. Reprinted by permission of the authors.
“New Energy” is copyright © 2019 by Vicki Weisfeld. Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, July/August 2019. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Back-room Mystery,” by Hal Meredith, was originally published in Answers, January 15, 1910.
The Chinese Parriot, by Earl Derr Biggers was originally published in 1927.
“Morning Star,” is copyright © 2023 by Phyllis Ann Karr and appears here for the first time.
“The Long Way Back,” by John Barrett, was originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, February 1948.
“Memory,” by Theodore Sturgeon, was originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1948.
“The Devil of East Lupton, Vermont,” by Murray Leinster, was originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories August 1948, as by “William Fitzgerald.”
“Quarantine,” by George O. Smith, was originally published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, December 1947.
THE CAT’S MEOW
Welcome to Black Cat Weekly.
Our 72nd issue is going to please a lot of our mystery readers. Not only do we have an original tale from the great Dave Zeltserman, courtesy of Acquiring Editor Michael Bracken, but we havca a terrific tale by Vicki Weisfelt, courtsey of Acquiring Editor Barb Goffman…plus a classic Sexton Blake mystery and the second Charlie Chan novel! (And, of course, a solve-it-yourself mystery from Hal Charles.
Science fiction & fantasy fans won’t be disappointed, either. We have a new Count Czarny story from Phyllis Ann Karr, plus classics by John Barrett, Murray Leinster, Theodore Sturgeon, and George O. Smith. Great stuff.
Here’s the lineup:
Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:
“When Pigs Fly,” by Dave Zeltserman [Michael Bracken Presents short story]
“Yard Sale Jitters,” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery]
“New Energy,” by Vicki Weisfeld [Barb Goffman Presents short story]
“A Back-room Mystery,” by Hal Meredith [Sexton Blake short story]
The Chinese Parriot, by Earl Derr Biggers [Charlie Chan novel]
Science Fiction & Fantasy:
“Morning Star,” by Phyllis Ann Karr [short story]
“The Long Way Back,” by John Barrett [short story]
“The Devil of East Lupton, Vermont,” by Murray Leinster [short story]
“Memory,” by Theodore Sturgeon [short story]
“Quarantine,” by George O. Smith [novelet]
Until next time, happy reading!
—John Betancourt
Editor, Black Cat Weekly
TEAM BLACK CAT
EDITOR
John Betancourt
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
Barb Goffman
Michael Bracken
Paul Di Filippo
Darrell Schweitzer
Cynthia M. Ward
PRODUCTION
Sam Hogan
Karl Wurf
WHEN PIGS FLY,byDave Zeltserman
“My dear, there’s no reason to point that at me.”
This was said by a man to a young woman inside an empty storage room deep within the bowels of one of New York City’s grand theaters, the room lit by a single candle. The man, who appeared to be in his late fifties, was using wooden crutches to keep himself upright because he was missing his right leg from the knee down. He further wore a patch over his left eye and had a gaunt, unkempt appearance. The suit he wore was grimy and threadbare, and the pant leg for his missing limb had been pinned over the stump. His hair, which had grown well past his shoulders, was also grimy, as well as threadbare in spots along his skull. The woman he had spoken to was young, rail thin, and had flinty gray eyes that were as unmoving as flecks of stone as she stared at him. She also had a gaunt, unkempt appearance, her clothes little more than rags and her long dark hair looking like it hadn’t been washed, cut, or combed in years. At that moment she was pointing a cocked and loaded crossbow at him.
“Where’d you come from?” she demanded.
“Nineteen seventy-three.”
The woman’s finger tightened on the trigger. “I don’t know what nonsense you’re peddling,” she said, “but I’m giving you one last chance to tell me where the secret passage is that you came out of, or I’m putting an arrow through your good eye.”
“It’s not nonsense,” the man said rather gruffly. “I’d like to show you what’s under my jacket sleeve. May I?”
He raised an eyebrow at the woman, and she gestured impatiently for him to proceed. “No sudden movements,” she warned.
“Of course.” He slowly, methodically rolled up his jacket sleeve to reveal a glowing contraption attached to his arm at his wrist. After he pressed a button, a five-inch by seven-inch screen unfolded.
“You better not touch that thing again,” she ordered, her knuckles on her hand holding the crossbow showing bone white.
“This thing is a one-of-a-kind portable time-traveling device,” he explained. “That is how I seemingly appeared out of thin air, and I assure you, I did not crawl out of a hiding spot, secret trap door, or anything else of that sort. Instead, I traveled here from 1973. June eighth, 1973, to be precise. This device currently has enough charge stored in it that I could demonstrate by popping out and back into this time, but if I were to do that I’d have to wait four months for it to recharge itself before I’d be able to use it again, and given the fact that I found you huddling here, as well as your general disheveled appearance, I have to assume that I failed to stop the alien invasion.”
“The what?”
The man’s jaw clamped shut, and his good eye opened wide as he studied her. “If there isn’t an alien invasion, then what catastrophe have I unleashed this time?”
She lowered the crossbow so that it pointed at his groin. Her voice came out as something harsh and guttural as she said, “If you’re responsible for the flying pigs, then you deserve not only to be shot but neutered.”
“What? How are flying pigs even possible?”
“They’re not only possible, but they’re mean and cunning and vicious as all hell. And they always seem to be hungry. If you listen carefully, you can hear them. Even from inside this room.”
The man closed his eye, his brow severely wrinkling from his concentration. “I hear wind gusts,” he said after a while.
“That’s the sound of them flapping their wings. Night sky must have thousands of them right now. Keep listening.”
He kept listening until he heard the faint squealing noises. “These can’t be pigs,” he said with an air of certainty. “They must be bats. Perhaps you call them flying pigs because of the squealing noise they make? Or that they’ve been genetically modified so that their faces resemble members of the Suidae family?”
“I never heard of that family and don’t know any of them, but I call these creatures pigs because that’s what they are. Full grown they’re two hundred pounds easy. Right now, they’re hunting. Come dawn, they’ll be finding places to sleep and then I’ll be hunting them. Are you really responsible for them?”
“Apparently so. They must be an unintended consequence of my fixing the timeline to stop the alien invasion, which at least I seem to have accomplished… The wings on these pigs must be enormous to support that kind of weight. But I digress.” The man chewed on his thumbnail, his uncovered eye losing focus as he stared at something off in the distance. When he looked back at the young woman, he offered her a bleak smile. “I wouldn’t blame you if you were to shoot me. God knows, I would deserve it, but I need to go back in time to fix this, just as I fixed the alien invasion, and the machine uprising before that, and the zombie apocalypse before that.”
The woman lowered the crossbow so that the arrow pointed toward the floor.
“Are you from the future?” she asked.
“No.” His smile turned bleaker. “I was born in Boston in the year 2002, and I made my first jump into the past earlier on this date.” He glanced at the contraption on his wrist, and sourly noted, “In fact, that would’ve only been twenty-seven minutes ago.”
Her face was marred with confusion as she stared at him. “That means you’re only thirty-four?”
“Technically I’m thirty-five since my birthday is January second. But as you can see, time stands still for no one. When I first stood in this room on this very date for my maiden voyage, I looked a great deal younger than I do now. I also had both my eyes and all my limbs intact. But I have spent over two decades in the past trying to fix my mistakes, and my last trip was particularly arduous, although that is of no consequence now.”
He adjusted his weight on his crutches so he could extend his hand to the woman.
“Harrison Flecker,” he said.
She looked at his hand as if it were disease-ridden. “I don’t let no one get close enough to touch me.”
“Fair enough. But you could still tell me your name.”
She stared at him blankly for several seconds before telling him her name was Clara. “It’s been so long since I’ve told anyone that I almost couldn’t remember my name,” she admitted.
“Understandable, my dear.” One of Flecker’s crutches slipped, and he almost tumbled to the floor before regaining his balance. Grimacing, he told her that his last week had been particularly tiring, and that he needed to lie down for a little while to regain his strength. “I’m afraid all my years battling the past and the consequences I’ve caused have taken their toll, and I’d like to ask for your assistance.”
“You mean in getting rid of these damn pigs?”
“Precisely.”
“How would I do that?”
“I need to discover how these flying pigs came about.” Flecker grimaced again as he awkwardly lowered himself to the floor. “A trip to the New York Public Library would be a good start.”
She scrunched up her flinty eyes as if she were trying to dig a fact from the recesses of her mind. “That’s the building with the stone lions in front,” she said. “It’s not too far from here, and we should be able to make it there if we’re careful. Okay, I’ll help you as long as it means no more pigs.”
She was about to tell him that he could only rest for two hours and then they would need to get moving, but she didn’t bother as he had already started snoring.
* * * *
The theaters and other businesses lining 44th Street were in ruins as if cannonballs had been shot through the glass windows and doors, and the sidewalks and street showed a seemingly endless number of red stains as reminders of the savagery that had happened there. Flecker and Clara kept close to the buildings and moved slowly and cautiously as they made their way to 5th Avenue, broken glass crunching under foot. Clara remained tense as she carried the loaded crossbow and frequently searched the sky for pigs. A quiver holding additional steel arrows hung over her shoulder.
“Now’s the safest hour to be out,” she said. “Most of the pigs have moved into the underground train tunnels and sewers to sleep. But not all. Some are still hungry and searching for food. You always have to be careful when outside.”
Flecker had been questioning her about the pigs, and when he asked what she remembered about their origin, she explained that she was very young, maybe only twelve, when she first heard stories about them. Back then her family lived in Boonville, Indiana, a small town twenty-five miles east of Evansville.
“It wasn’t long after that that they came. The first few days there were so many of them the sky turned dark. It didn’t take long before they were busting through our homes and slaughtering us. I escaped with my older brother Chuck. This was his crossbow, and these steel arrows were his also.” She raised the crossbow several inches for emphasis. “We thought we’d be safer in a city like New York. That the pigs wouldn’t go there, and if they did, there’d be better places for us to hide. It was a long, hard trip by foot, scavenging whatever food we could and always having to find shelter when the pigs came searching for us. Chuck saved me hundreds of times during that time, but he didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry.”
She acknowledged his sentiment with a hard stare. Her voice sounded strangled as she asked, “What did you do to cause all this?”
At first it looked as if he wasn’t going to answer her, but soon his expression softened. “I owe you that much,” he acknowledged, grunting as he moved along on the crutches. “There had long been an ethical question among us scientists working to crack the mystery of time travel about whether we should go back and kill baby Hitler if we ever had the chance.”
“I never heard of this baby.”
“That makes perfect sense since I changed history so that no one would ever hear of him. Originally, he became the leader of Germany in the 1930s and later plunged the world into war and murdered millions of innocent people in terrible ways.”
“Your killing him as a baby caused these pigs?”
“If I had simply done that, I believe everything would’ve worked out. But that’s not what I did. The thought of killing a baby, even one who grew up to commit the monstrous acts that this man did, distressed me, and so instead I stole him after he was born and smuggled him into the United States. After that, I gave the baby to a farmer and his wife in Nebraska and thought that I had solved the problem. But when I returned to my time, I found that I had inadvertently caused a sequence of events that led to a zombie apocalypse. That was how I lost my leg. A zombie bit my lower leg and I had to amputate it to keep from transforming into a zombie myself.”
Clara turned away from the sky to give him a blank look. “I don’t know what zombies are,” she said.
Flecker shuddered, and said, “I’d have to think they’re at least as bad as these pigs. They feed on the living, and if they only bite you instead of killing you, they turn you into one of them.”
“This baby you didn’t kill grew up to cause this?”
“No. It took me years of sleuthing into the past to figure it out, but it turned out that it was due to what I thought at the time was an innocuous interaction with a man I met in New York before taking an ocean voyage in 1888 to Europe.”
Clara’s brow furrowed deeply as she considered this. “You’re not stupid,” she said, her voice showing her exasperation. “You can’t be if you invented this time traveling thingamajig. Why didn’t you go back and warn yourself not to mess with things?”
“The Flecker Paradox.”
“What?”
“A puzzling paradox that I have uncovered, and which I’ve taken the liberty of naming after myself. When I have set things right, I’ll be researching it to better understand the phenomenon. After stumbling into the zombie apocalypse, I tried doing exactly what you so eloquently suggested, but it turned out that I no longer existed in the year 2036, so I couldn’t warn myself not to disturb the fabric of time. After further investigation, I found that I died early on during the zombie apocalypse and never had the opportunity to invent my portable time machine.”
“That makes no sense,” Clara exclaimed, her cheeks reddening with anger. “If you changed history so that you died, you shouldn’t be here now, and neither should that contraption on your arm!”
“As I said, a paradox.”
She turned suddenly toward him and pointed the crossbow at his face. “Duck!” she ordered. He did as she demanded, and an arrow whizzed by his ear, followed immediately by a sickening thud. He turned to see a pig suspended in air, an arrow planted deep between its small, black eyes, its wingspread every bit as enormous as Flecker had imagined. He watched as the creature tumbled to the street, landing less than fifty feet from them.
Clara ran to the thing, took out a hunting knife that had been concealed under her rags, and proceeded to dig out the arrow. Flecker stood in shock from what he had witnessed, and he earlier wouldn’t have believed anything could’ve further shocked him after witnessing rampaging zombies, sentient killing machines, and the slithering snake-like aliens that used their telekinetic powers to conquer the Earth—a power that he witnessed firsthand when one of them sent him flying upwards hundreds of feet into the air. He escaped death then by keeping his wits about him and waiting until right before impact before activating his time travel device so that he only tumbled harmlessly to the ground when he arrived in the past.
“Snap out of it,” he chided himself. “Good lord, man, you’re missing an opportunity here.”
He forced himself into action, moving quickly on his crutches so that he could join Clara and the fallen beast. Clara had cleaned and inspected the arrow and was in the process of cutting off a chunk of the animal’s hindquarters by the time Flecker reached her. He lowered himself to the pavement, first examining the tough, sinewy texture of the animal’s wings, then probing the animal’s chest muscles with his fingers, feeling what could’ve been corded steel.
Clara had finished packing away the meat into a backpack that she carried, and she asked Flecker what he was doing.
“I’m trying to learn as much as I can from this creature. Help me roll it onto its side.”
“Why?”
“I want to get a better look at it so I can identify what breed was used to create this genetic monstrosity. Knowing that might lead me to the biotech company responsible for this.”
Clara first had to cut off one of the wings before they could roll the two-hundred-pound pig onto its side. The pig had brownish-reddish fur, except for its long snout, which was more black and gray. Its body was flat and narrow, and its ear large and pointy like a bat’s.
Clara asked, “You know all the pig breeds by sight?”
“No, but we’re going to a library. I’m sure they’ll have a book on pigs that will have pictures of all the breeds.”
“Have you looked at it enough?” she asked.
“Yes, I believe I have.”
It was only after Flecker had moved away from the animal that he noticed the others who had emerged from the buildings. They were a mix of young and old, and like Clara, they were lean as rails and were dressed in rags. Clara backed away from the animal to give them access to it. She armed the crossbow with another arrow and kept her gaze toward the sky.
“I’ll be standing guard until they’re done with what they need to do,” she told Flecker. “You might want to move closer to those buildings. It will be safer there.”
“That’s all right.”
Flecker watched as a group of thirty-some people seemingly worked in silent unison as they used knives to dismantle the pig. It took no more than five minutes, and when they were done there was nothing left of the animal. Even the wings had been cut up and taken away. Those that scuttled past Clara to get back to their hiding spots nodded their thanks to her. She waited until the last of them were gone before telling Flecker that this is what they did to survive.
* * * *
The stone lions still stood guard outside the library, for all the good they did. The building was in shambles, every window and door broken apart.
“We won’t find any pigs inside,” Clara said. “It’s too dry in there. They like damp places to sleep.”
The library was as much of a shambles inside as it was out. Almost all the book stacks had been toppled over, and the interior doors had been broken off their hinges. A dizzying amount of red stains covered the floor, a telltale sign that the pigs had successfully hunted there. Even with the interior being as much of a mess as it was, Flecker found a book on pig breeds. He flipped through the pages before stopping at a particular photo, which he showed to Clara.
“It looks like them,” she agreed. “How does this help?”
“The breed is from Eastern Europe. These creatures could’ve been developed by the Russians as a bioweapon, or they could be an Eastern European company’s genetic experiment gone horribly wrong.” He stopped to rub his good eye. His voice showed exhaustion as he added, “Or the pigs could’ve been imported to any country in the world. But it’s still a clue to this puzzle.”
They next went to the magazine reading room, which had been mostly picked out, but still had a few dozen magazines scattered on the floor. Clara gathered these up and brought them to a table, and she and Flecker went through them searching for articles about a company experimenting with flying pigs. They didn’t find any.
“Not a complete loss,” Flecker said. “The most recent of these magazines is dated August 2026. We can assume the world still hadn’t seen flying pigs by that date.”
“I would’ve been twelve then,” Clara said.
“Which supports what you told me earlier. I’ll go back to that time and continue my sleuthing.”
Flecker rolled up his jacket sleeve and pressed a button on his time travel device to unfold the screen.
“I’ll go back a month earlier just to be safe. Let’s say three AM, July first.”
“Where will it take you?”
“The device only bends time, so I will end up precisely where I am when I initiate time travel.” He winked at her, and said, “Which means I need to move to an empty spot in this room, so I don’t end up impaled by this table or any of these chairs in case they’ve been moved.”
Clara got to her feet and watched as he set the date for the time travel. “Harrison,” she said.
Curiosity got the better of him as he wondered why she chose that moment to call him by his name. He was turning to look at her when she hit him across the jaw with one of his crutches, the force of the blow simultaneously knocking him unconscious and breaking the crutch in half.
It took Clara several minutes to figure out how to remove the time travel contraption from Flecker’s arm, and several more minutes after that before she was able to attach the device to her own arm, but once she activated the locking mechanism, it gripped her arm snuggly.
She wasn’t going to use the device in this library room. Instead, she would use it inside a clothing store less than a block away. The store had long ago been picked clean of its merchandise, but that wouldn’t be the case when she traveled back in time and popped up inside of there. She keyed in a much earlier year than the one Flecker had chosen since she had a different plan in mind, but she left the time set for three AM. This way she’d have some privacy when she shopped for new clothing. She still planned on ridding the world of these damn pigs, but she was going to do it in style.
* * * *
Heads turned when Clara walked into the hotel bar in downtown Chicago. It made sense that every guy would want to look at her. She had spent several years traveling back and forth in time, and while she was slender, she had lost her gauntness. Her hair was still long, but no longer a rat’s nest. Instead, it had been professionally styled, dyed a light chestnut brown, and fell past her bare shoulders. Any attractive woman wearing the same sheer black dress and matching stiletto pumps would’ve gotten attention, but with Clara decked out in that outfit, she’d be turning heads wherever she went.
The man she sat next to at the bar was in his early thirties, and looked like he could’ve been Harrison Flecker’s son, at least the version of Harrison Flecker that Clara had once upon a time met in a deserted New York theater. The man did a double take when he saw her.
“I’m sorry for staring,” he said, his cheeks blushing red. “This isn’t a pickup line, I swear, but you look so familiar.”
Clara laughed. “I wouldn’t mind it one bit if it were a pickup line,” she said.
He introduced himself as Dan, which she knew wasn’t his real name, but she likewise gave him a false name. When he offered her his hand, she took it, holding it a good deal longer than she should have. He bought her several drinks and dinner, and then brought her back to his hotel room. Once there, she took silk ropes out of her pocketbook and raised an eyebrow.
“You have a four-poster bed,” she said with a sly smile. “Why don’t we have some fun?”
He grinned nervously. “I’m game. Should I tie you up?”
Her sly smile grew wicked. “Let me have my way with you.”
He almost tripped in his eagerness to remove his clothes. She stopped him from taking off his boxers, telling him that he needed to leave her something to unwrap. Once she had his wrists and ankles secured to the bedposts, he actually looked surprised when she picked up the pillow to smother him.
She would’ve liked to have explained to him that she had nothing against him, except maybe that he was willing to cheat on his wife during a business trip, but still, that wouldn’t be a good enough reason to end his life. But what would’ve been the point of telling him that if she let him live, in two months he’d be impregnating his wife, and that the baby boy they would name Harrison would later muck up the fabric of time and send the world into turmoil? She didn’t see how knowing that would’ve made it any easier for him, so she didn’t bother with an explanation. Instead, she used all her weight to push the pillow against his face and waited until he stopped struggling. It seemed to take longer than it probably did—time has a funny way of fooling you—but eventually his body went limp.
The first time Clara traveled back into the past, she planned to kill Harrison as a baby, but she just couldn’t do it. The idea of killing a baby was distressful enough—even if that baby were to later grow up and cause her whole family and millions of others to be slaughtered by flying pigs—but she also knew how much the baby’s death would devastate Harrison’s mother. So instead, she spent more than three years traveling back and forth in time, including all those months when she had to wait for the contraption to recharge itself, before eventually working out her plan.
She found it interesting that George Flecker, which was the man’s real name, had recognized her. She had met him several times during other travels, even had conversations with him, but whenever she had traveled to earlier times than this one, she made sure he never saw her. Maybe she had discovered her own paradox. The Clara Paradox.
She took the time travel contraption from her pocketbook and attached it to her arm, then set the date for what would’ve originally been her twelfth birthday. She set the time for midnight and moved away from the bed. She knew the hotel had security cameras, and that they would have video of her and George Flecker walking into the hotel room together, but it would be a mystery as to what happened to her after that. A confounding locked-room mystery that the police would never solve. She activated the contraption, and found herself in the exact same spot, except now the lights were off and a dead man was no longer tied to the bed.
She had been careful with her planning and knew the hotel room would be empty that night, and so she walked out of it, took the elevator to the lobby, and because she was also resourceful and took advantage of her time travels, found the car where she had left it during one of her other time travels, then drove to the North Side condo that she had purchased during another time travel.
Clara spent the next year religiously checking scientific journals, but never found any stories about a genetics company experimenting with flying pigs. Whatever damage Harrison Flecker had done to the fabric of time had been fixed by making sure he was never born. She waited until the morning of her brother Chuck’s seventeenth birthday, which fell that year on a Saturday, before getting in her car and driving to Boonville, making the five-hour ride in four hours.
It was a little after ten o’clock when she knocked on her family’s front door. When her mother answered, it was everything Clara could do to keep from bursting out crying.
Clara said, “Hi, are you Susan Jackson?”
“Yes, I am, dear.”
“I’m Mary Browning, your cousin Evelyn’s daughter. I was traveling through Boonville when I remembered I had family here, and thought I’d drop by.”
Evelyn Browning was actually her mom’s second cousin, and Clara knew that her mom had long ago lost touch with that side of the family. Still, her mom smiled sweetly at her. “I’d be blind not to see the family resemblance. Why, you look like you could be my baby sister!”
Her mom brought her in for a hug. Clara didn’t want to let go, but she knew it would look funny if she didn’t.
“It’s my boy’s birthday,” her mom said. “I’m making the family a special breakfast. Would you like to join us?”
“I don’t want to be an imposition.”
“You won’t be.”
Her mom took her by the hand and led her into the house that Clara knew so well from what seemed like a lifetime ago. Patches, an eleven-year-old cocker spaniel, came padding over to them from the kitchen, whimpering and enthusiastically wagging his feather-duster-like tail. Clara got onto her knees so she could hug the dog, which only made him whimper more and his tail beat faster.
“It looks like you’ve made a friend,” her mom said. “Patches has always been a good judge of character.”
The dog stuck close to her side as they made their way to the kitchen. Clara thought she had prepared herself for this, but she felt overwhelmed as she looked at her dad, Chuck, and her thirteen-year-old self sitting around the kitchen table.
Clara used a palm to wipe away tears. “I’m sorry for being so emotional,” she said. “It’s just that you look like such a nice family.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” her dad said, chuckling.
“This is my cousin, Mary,” her mom said. “Tom, my husband, can be a real smartass, as you just found out. And this is my daughter, Clara.”
Clara had forgotten how painfully shy she had been as a child before the pigs came. “If it would embarrass you for us to hug, we can just shake hands,” she said.
Her younger self seemed relieved to hear that, and they left it at that. When she was introduced to Chuck, she told the boy that since it was his birthday, she was going to hug him even if it did embarrass him, and then brought him in for a tight embrace. As with her mom, she had to force herself to let go.
“You’re going to break a lot of hearts when you get older,” she told him, which made him blush a deep red.
“Right now, he’s breaking a lot of plates when he does the dishes,” her dad said, which got her younger self laughing, and Chuck turning an even brighter red.
Her mom had her take a seat at the table. Clara accepted one of the griddlecakes that was offered but begged off having any of the grilled ham. “This is awfully good ham,” her mom said. “Are you sure you don’t want any?”
“Thank you, no. I’ve already had too much ham for one lifetime.”
After breakfast, Clara found a chance to be alone with Chuck, and she told him to always look out for his little sister. “I know she appreciates it more than she could ever tell you.”
Chuck made a ‘yeah-right’ face. “She can be a real pain sometimes.”
“That might be so, but she’s also someone capable of saving the world someday.”
Chuck was too polite to do more than roll his eyes.
Later, after Clara said goodbye to her family and was driving away, she accepted that she’d never see them again. It had to be that way. She needed to let her younger self have her own life. She wasn’t exactly sure what she would be doing next. For now, she’d drive to the west coast, but she might choose after that to move to someplace else in the world to start a new life. All she knew for sure was that the future was wide open to her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dave Zeltserman lives in the Boston area. His short mystery fiction, which is published frequently in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, has been nominated for numerous awards and has won a Shamus, Derringer, and two Ellery Queen Readers Awards. His crime and horror novels have been named best of the year by NPR, Washington Post, ALA, Booklist, and WBUR. His noir novel, Small Crimes, has been made into a Netflix film starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and his novel The Caretaker of Lorne Field is currently in film development.
YARD SALE JITTERS,by Hal Charles
Beth Simmons made her way through the maze of racks filled with clothing, stacks of books, and tables lined with everything from costume jewelry to small kitchen appliances as she approached the front door of her sister’s house. Waving to her six-year-old nephew Rickie, who was eagerly helping his dad arrange some garden tools near the driveway, Beth wondered why Nell had called her so early that Saturday morning and insisted that she come by as soon as possible.
“Oh, Sis,” said Beth’s older sister as she greeted Beth on the porch, “thanks for getting here so quickly. I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Mom’s cameo necklace is missing. I laid it on the kitchen table this morning, and when I went to retrieve it after breakfast, it was gone.”
Nell had always treasured the necklace as a tangible link with their mother, and Beth appreciated her sister’s near panic at the thought of losing it. “Now just settle down. I’m sure the necklace is around here somewhere.”
As the sisters entered the house and headed for the kitchen, Beth said, “You always keep the necklace in your jewelry box in the bedroom. Why did you leave it in the kitchen?”
“You know that I wear it only on special occasions,” said Nell nervously. “I planned to wear it tonight for the big charity dance, and since it gets so tarnished, Herb promised to clean it for me.”
As they entered the kitchen, Beth looked at the empty kitchen table. “You said you noticed the necklace missing after breakfast. Could someone have moved it while setting the table or knocked it off during clean-up?”
“Believe me,” said Nell, shaking her head, “I have searched this kitchen with a fine tooth comb. My hands and knees are sore from crawling around, and I’ll even admit to rummaging through the garbage just in case.”
“You said that Herb planned to clean the necklace. Could he have taken it without saying anything?”
“After my impromptu search, I asked him,” said Nell, “but all I got was a smile and a shoulder shrug.”
Surveying the room. Beth said, “I know it’s early, but have you had any potential yard sale customers this morning?”
Again, Nell shook her head. “Nobody yet. Just the family.”
“What about Emily?” said Beth. “I didn’t see her as I came in.”
“I’m afraid my teenage princess went straight back to her room after breakfast,” said Nell with the first smile of the morning. “You don’t think she’d chance breaking a nail or messing up that fancy hairdo she spent her allowance on just to help set up a yard sale?”
“She’s going to the big dance tonight?”
“That’s all she’s talked about for weeks. Her first formal dance, and everything has to be just right.”
Beth smiled. “Perhaps eggs and toast weren’t the only things Emily grabbed for breakfast.”
Nell’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t think she could have…she’s always admired the necklace, but—”
“Only one way to find out,” said Beth as they headed up the stairs.
When Emily opened her bedroom door, Beth was amazed at what she saw. Her teenage niece had transformed into a beautiful young woman. “Aunt Beth,” said a surprised Emily, “what are you doing here so early?”
Nell stepped in front of Beth. “Young lady,” she said impatiently, “you didn’t by chance take your grandmother’s necklace to wear this evening?”
A frown shot across Emily’s face. “Absolutely not!” she said. “Are you mad at me because I wouldn’t help out with your yard sale? I bet everything would be just great if I’d run around like Rickie begging to carry this or move that.”
Suddenly, Beth had a hunch. “Give me a minute, and I might be able to solve the mystery.”
Solution
When Beth searched through the costume jewelry displayed on one of the tables out front, she found the cameo necklace. As she suspected, her nephew, wanting so much to help with the yard sale, had spotted the tarnished necklace on the table, and, thinking it was something for the sale, had excitedly placed it with the other pieces of jewelry. A bit embarrassed for suspecting Emily, Nell asked her daughter to wear the beloved necklace to the dance.
The Barb Goffman Presents series showcasesthe best in modern mystery and crime stories,
personally selected by one of the most acclaimed
short stories authors and editors in the mystery
field, Barb Goffman, for Black Cat Weekly.
NEW ENERGY,by Vicki Weisfeld
Wednesday night at the Rattler’s Den I perched on a barstool watching the Astros lose to the White Sox on three TVs and waiting for my date. So far that evening my male companionship was limited to the good ol’ boys at the scarred tables, who looked like they’d occupied those same chairs since the Alamo. Most likely they’d made some snap judgments about me too, all of them wrong. As a young Asian American, not quite five feet tall, I find these people have their opinions about me.
The bartender sidled up and took my order for another Pacifico. “Visiting?” he asked. “Call me Pete.”
Though I’d lived in Sweetwater, Texas, for almost six months, I’d never been in this bar before. “I work in town.” I stuck out my hand. “Brianna Yamato. Reporter for the Sweetwater Register.”
My impressive media connections must have scared Pete away because a long swipe of his bar rag took him down to the other end. I was waiting for a guy my roommate had fixed me up with. It was only our second real date, and he’d suggested this place.
An hour later, when I declared Chip Woodley MIA, I ordered a chicken-fried steak dinner. Might as well treat myself. Chip was a wind-turbine technician, doing installation and repairs. He’d intrigued me by describing his work, which was the kind of oddball thing you just don’t think about. He said every time he works on a turbine, he has to climb up twenty-five or thirty stories carrying nearly a hundred pounds of tools and gear. I admit when he told me that, I made a plan to check out his muscles. He said you have to like to sweat. The ladder’s on the inside of the shaft. It’s hot and noisy in there, and the workspace up top is cramped.
I kept checking my phone while I ate, but still no word from Chip. One of the Astros hit a homer, and I waited until the noise died down to ask the bartender for my check.
This night was a double bust. Chip was good company, but I also wanted information for a story I planned to propose to my editors, who ignored me as much as possible. Wind power in Nolan County had grown so big so fast, I thought it might be time for a good recap. The way I envisioned it, the story could cover the history of wind power in West Texas, the different companies involved. Controversies. Sure as shooting, there’d be some.
As I drove home, I ran through a list of the players, the big local companies. I had good connections at Lone Star NRG, where Chip and my roommate worked. I’d have to find someone to talk to at Grainger Power, an aggressive up-and-comer. It might be harder to track down a spokesperson at the two or three smaller companies in the area. For sure, I’d talk to Effie Price, librarian at the County-City Library. She knew everybody and all the politics.
* * * *
That night about two a.m., my roommate, Ruth, woke me up. “Robert’s here.” She meant Robert Torres, husband of her best friend and a Sweetwater police officer.
I patted the nightstand for my glasses and stumbled to the living room in my pajamas. “Middle of the night, Robert.”
“Don’t I know it. It’s about Chip. Maybe you should sit down, Brianna.”
The mild annoyance that Chip had missed dinner transformed instantly into a full-on stampede of anxiety. “Tell me standing up. I already know it’s bad news.”
“We got a call from Lone Star saying he didn’t report in after his shift, and they sent one of their people out to where he was working. His truck was there, but they couldn’t raise him on the radio or his cell phone. Hot as August has been…”
“Go on.”
“Well, another tech climbed up there—it’s a helluva climb—”
“We know that,” Ruth said.
“Anyway, when he saw what was inside…” Torres was looking everywhere but at my face.
“Keep going,” I said.
“There was a lot of discussion of how to bring him down.”
“It’s a tight space.” I could hardly get the words out.
“Worse. It was a crime scene.”
Then I did sit down.
“Somebody took up a video camera, and the medical examiner’s rep, Crawford, watched the feed and told him what pictures to get. No way Crawford could climb up there to see for himself.”
“Not at three hundred pounds, he couldn’t,” Ruth said. She sat next to me and squeezed my hand.
“It was…difficult,” Torres said.
“Was he ambushed up there?” I asked, struggling to understand how that could happen.
“That would be easier to explain. He was bit by a big old western diamondback.”
“How in the hell—”
“That’s the point. A rattler couldn’t have climbed that tower on its own. They thought maybe somebody took it up, but the access door was locked, and the security cam shows nobody but Chip going in.”
“So—?”
“So it looks like he carried that snake up with him, in his equipment bag. Which means somebody put it in there. The way it turned out, that means murder.”
I needed to catch my breath.
“Why didn’t he call for help?” Ruth asked.
“We’re guessing that when he unzipped his bag, that snake shot out, mad as the devil. Bit Chip right in the neck. Doc says the venom would have reached his heart fast. He killed the damn thing, but by then, he was probably dizzy, having trouble breathing, and way up there…he had to know he’d never make it down… He was a nice guy, Brianna. I’m awful sorry. I came over to tell you so you and Ruth wouldn’t find out tomorrow at work.”
“Hy must be going crazy,” Ruth said, sniffling. Her boss, Hiram Cotton, was Lone Star’s site manager and, to hear Ruth tell it, a hot mess on his best day.
“I appreciate it, Robert,” I said. “Anyone from the Register there?”
“Not that I saw, though we had a right crowd—sheriff’s office, medical examiner’s representative—you know, Doc Crawford—me and others from Sweetwater PD, and the Lone Star NRG folks.”
Visualizing the awful scene thirty stories above ground shoved my brain into high gear, when what I really wanted was time and stillness. Not that Chip and I were so close, not yet, but his death needed some respectful consideration.
* * * *
Before leaving the house the next morning, I phoned my editor, Charlie, and filled him in. “You want to cover it?” He sounded doubtful. He still considered me a tryout, despite an episode in June when I figured out a murder case the police had given up on. Apparently memories were short—unless, that is, some sort of insult was involved.
I wanted the assignment, but I also wanted a free hand. “I knew the victim, so better not put me as primary,” I said.
“In that case, I’ll make it a Max Reid story. You can back him up.” Reid was the crusty king of the paper’s crime-reporting domain, impatient with female reporters, especially ones he doubted were even of legal drinking age. Me.
I was happy to let Max be the front man, shooting the breeze with Crawford, the sheriff, and whomever else. I’d do the real digging.
* * * *
All the prep work I’d done for my possible wind-energy story was turning out to be unexpectedly useful. I took my folder with me to lunch. When I entered the wood-paneled confines of the Southside Grill, the unmistakable aromas of comfort food and fry-grease surrounded me like a blanket. I nodded to Lynda Doyle, a waitress who’d given me a break on my big murder-case story.
Crawford—who, I had observed, had a deadly fear of uncertainty—would want to come to a conclusion as soon as possible, preferably one that didn’t ruffle any feathers. At which point, he’d dig in and resist additional evidence, much less theories or suppositions. If I wanted to uncover a likely suspect or two, I’d have to act fast. I guessed I’d have until Monday to poke around.
I paged through the folder, adding notes from my morning’s conversation with Effie. I’d hoped to uncover any ripples in the smooth flow of cash from the area’s wind farms.
That morning, Effie and I had occupied one of the library’s conference rooms. I gave her my sly look and opened the box of Danish pastry I’d brought, releasing the tantalizing scent of butter and sugar. Effie has her weaknesses.
“I’ll admit I’ve been running through scenarios,” I said. “What I’d be thinking about if I were a cop.”
“Which is?” she said distractedly, studying the pastry selection.
“Number one, corporate sabotage. That’s top of mind any time there’s this much money at stake. Wind power in Texas is booming,” I said, “so it could be a company that wants a piece of the action or wants to drive out competitors or make it hard for them to hire the help they need. Everybody will be nervous about going up in those towers now.”
She selected a raspberry Danish, took a bite, and motioned for me to pass her a couple of napkins. “Interestingly,” she said, “so far, the state’s oil and gas interests aren’t too worried.”
“What about a disgruntled citizen? Say, someone who doesn’t like all these wind turbines?”
Effie swallowed a slug of coffee and said, “A few years ago, some locals hired a Dallas lawyer and sued, claiming the towers interfered with the enjoyment of their property. But the courts threw the case out. Strong Texas tradition of ‘if you own the land, you do whatever the hell you want with it.’”
“Meanwhile, I bet the ranchers like the extra income from leasing their land for the turbines, and the industry has boosted employment.” I riffled through my papers to check the one on job creation.
“Absolutely. I guess people who wanted some leases and didn’t get them—they might be mad. But would that lead them to kill someone?” Effie didn’t read the national crime news like I did. I didn’t think that was so far-fetched. At the same time, when I drove around the county, it looked like pretty near everyone who wanted to lease had done it. The wind farms were enormous.
I asked another question. “Environmental opposition?”
“Probably not. Folks cackling about the danger to birds are mostly down around the Gulf. I’d put them low on your list of suspects. Oh, and the military gets riled up occasionally—Dyess Air Force Base is one county east. They worry about their planes. Also unlikely, in my opinion.”
As I ate the Southside’s cheeseburger now, I tried to gin up a few more scenarios. I was missing something. And maybe I was looking in the wrong direction altogether. What if it was Chip himself who was the target, not the industry? Yes, he seemed like a good guy, but Ruth didn’t know him all that well, and I sure didn’t.
I could look into that. Reporters investigate people all the time. If it got too tricky, I could probably get help from Max Reid. He might be lazy, but he was a good crime reporter with contacts all over the state, and he had the balls to call anybody, anytime.
When I got back to the office, I sat down with Max, just to get our partnership on this story off on the right foot. My folder of background information stayed in my desk drawer. Musing aloud, he said that his golfing buddy, Sweetwater Police Chief Hank Childers, had passed on some gossip a while back. A Lone Star NRG executive—mad as a hornet—had told him he was worried about some recent problems. Petty vandalism, copper thefts at construction sites, that kind of thing. “Nothing worth writing about,” Max emphasized. Which meant he didn’t want to bother with it—or let Chief Childers know he was a leaky sieve.
“The chief suggested to the Lone Star man—”
“Would that be Hiram Cotton?” I asked, and Max looked surprised I would know that.
“Yes, it would. He suggested to Cotton that he share their maintenance schedule with the sheriff, so his patrols would know when people were legitimately at a site. I guess he did that, and the trouble seems to have died down.”
“Maybe it was just random vandalism,” I said, “but it could have been corporate sabotage aimed at Lone Star.”
Max yawned. It was his turn to surprise me. “And just possibly it’s something bigger.”
“Such as?”
“They’ve also had fleeting outages caused by cyber-intrusions. Nothing to set off major alarms. Their IT experts back in Dallas think someone is probing for weaknesses. In any networked system, there’s bound to be some.”
“And Lone Star’s the target?”
“Maybe,” he said.
Or its control systems, as potential conduits to the state electric grid, I realized.
“Isn’t all that protected?” I asked. Max was worrying me.
“In theory. But human nature, Yamato. Does every person with access to the system follow all the security protocols every time? Is every new piece of equipment compatible with the company’s security regime?”
“What’s the endgame?”
“Who can say? It’s complicated.” Too complicated for you, he seemed to be saying.
But I knew the worst case would be upstream damage to the power grid and the ensuing chaos. A bad situation would be costly disruption for the one company. Even the threat of it might make Lone Star and other wind farm operators pay big bucks—a classic protection racket.
“Funny,” I said. “Those turbines slowly turning like giant white pinwheels seem so benign.”
“They’re a truckload of security vulnerabilities.”
“Are you some kind of cyber expert?”
“Brianna, in our business, I know enough to be dangerous in a lot of areas. You have to talk the talk until you convince people to let you have at the real experts.”
“But how does Chip fit in? Aren’t hacker-saboteurs under-the-radar types?”
“Maybe they thought he knew something. Maybe he did.”
* * * *
Later that afternoon, I made a really difficult phone call. I talked to Chip’s parents—distraught, sure, but they were grateful for any efforts to pursue the case. They referred to their dead son as Charles and told me he worked for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC sent him out west.
I also got through to the head of FERC’s security team.
“He knew Chip well,” I told Max. I could tell how upset he was from fifteen hundred miles away. “Here’s something interesting: Chip’s employment application with Lone Star didn’t mention this federal job.”
“How do you know that?”
“Uh, a confidential source”—my roommate, Ruth.
“Are you saying he was working undercover?”
I shrugged. And if he was, what if someone out here found out he was a fed? That he was looking into security issues?
“Well, I’ve got to cut this short,” Max said. “I have an appointment with Sheriff Lightfoot to see if those county boys have any information for the news media. But I’ll keep that federal job quiet for now. They’d be on that like a dog on a bone and would stop looking.”
“Can I come along?”
“No need. If they have anything to say, you’ll hear about it.”
Right.
“I might have some questions,” I said.
“Well, write them out for me, and if the occasion arises, I’ll ask them.”
“That’s okay. Never mind.”
His humph said, Thought so.
* * * *
I walked to the corner to buy a box of donuts, which I carried back and opened on my desk, bait for Max on his return from the sheriff’s office. Because he had his crack-of-dawn golf game with Chief Childers every Thursday morning, I predicted he’d be prowling for an unhealthy snack before the afternoon was out.
Soon enough, Max lingered by my desk, donut in one hand and black coffee in the other. Alongside the donuts, I’d casually laid out the results of my first assignment for the Register: photos of the nearly five thousand pounds of rattlesnakes swept up in Sweetwater’s annual rattlesnake roundup, hoping he’d make the association and start the conversation himself.
He bit. “Those snakes sure look nasty.” Especially littered with donut crumbs.
“Yes, sir. Deadly.” I knew he couldn’t resist enlightening me on this subject.
“Rattlesnake bites usually don’t kill a person. Unless, of course, they can’t get medical help, like that poor bastard Woodley up in the wind turbine. Chick. He never had a chance.”
“Chip,” I said.
“Whatever.”
I clucked. “So bizarre. You or Sheriff Lightfoot have any theories?” I handed Max a napkin in case he wanted to brush off his shirtfront.
“Weeeell, Lightfoot’s not the pal Chief Childers is, but he seems to believe Woodley got on the wrong side of some gal’s husband. Ladies’ man.” He winked.
Theories like that must spring from a limited imagination. Nobody described Chip that way. Like Torres said, he was a nice guy. And, with his government job, more interesting than any of us had realized.
“Of course, when I saw him this morning at the ME’s office, he didn’t look so good.” Max peered at me as if to gauge my reaction.
“I bet not!” I held up the box. “Another donut?”
He took the last of the chocolate-frosted, the jerk. “The sheriff’s sending a deputy over to his place this afternoon for a look-see, but I don’t expect he’ll find much. He invited me to join him. Waste of a trip.” Did I mention how lazy Max is?
“You’re not going? It sounds so interesting.”
“Lot on my plate.”
“Too bad. It could be a real opportunity.”
“No, but—Say, you wouldn’t mind trekking out there, just in case?”
I looked as unbusy as possible. “I’d be glad to help you out. We’re partners on this, right? Will they let me?” This is definitely not how reporters get their crime stories where I come from, but Sweetwater has strong traditions of mutual back-scratching.
“Sure. I’ll tell them you’re there for me.”
“Anything special you want me to look for?”
He shrugged and tottered off.
* * * *
Outside Chip’s apartment building, I had to wait such a long time I was worried I’d missed the deputy, but eventually a sheriff’s car rolled up and parked in a loading zone. The deputy introduced himself as Hollis.
“Who are you again?” he asked, standing a little too close. At six feet six, he must have had a perfect view of the part in my hair.
“Brianna Yamato, reporter for the Register.”
“Yamato?” He drew the name out long enough for about a dozen questions to hitch a ride on it.
“Yes.” I wasn’t in the mood to explain anything. Not my Japanese dad. Not my family in California for 120 years. He was a public servant. He should get used to the public.
“Sheriff Lightfoot know about this?” he asked.
So, Max hadn’t called ahead. “Max Reid sent me. You know Max, golfing buddy of Chief Childers?”
“Hunh.” He unlocked the outside door, held it open, and said, “Well, knock the dust off, and c’mon in.” He found the right apartment and fumbled with the key. “Stick close.”
On seeing Chip’s apartment, I thought the search would take about a minute. I’ve never seen a place so devoid of clutter and personality. Sad, really. Deputy Hollis checked all the drawers and cabinets, the closets. Nothing.
“What’s he reading?” I wondered out loud, eyeing the books stacked on the TV stand. “Mind if I take a picture?” I asked, already snapping a few with my phone.
“At least he doesn’t keep snakes,” Hollis said. “The sheriff thought he might.”
“He thinks Woodley was killed by his own snake?” That was a novel theory. I made a face.
“Stranger things have happened. Sheriff Lightfoot swears they make interesting pets.”
“Gross.”
* * * *
Glasses of cabernet in hand, Ruth and I settled into our sofa to look at the photos of Chip’s apartment and speculate.
“His books were mostly technical stuff.” She read the spines: “One by the Department of Energy. Another by his agency, FERC. And here’s one techno-thriller. This all?”
“Believe me. It looked like nobody lived there.”
“That’s sad.”
“Exactly what I thought.”
“It makes the other stuff seem so unlikely.”
My antennae went up. “What other stuff?”
“I’m not sure how to say this, so I’ll just go on. Right before I left work, Sheriff Lightfoot stopped in to see Hy—Mr. Cotton, I suppose I should say—and the sheriff said they found evidence—‘conclusive evidence,’ he said—that Chip was having an affair with a married woman over in Roscoe. A waitress at a barbecue place.” She sniffed.
“What kind of evidence?”
“Something from his apartment. One of his officers found it.” She squeezed her eyes shut, thinking. “Hollis.”
I took a big drink of wine to cover my expression, which surely wasn’t as inscrutable as I might hope.
“Sorry, Bree,” Ruth said. “I thought he was a good person. I would never have fixed you up, if I’d known—”
“Don’t worry about it. But, Ruth, that makes no sense at all because Hollis didn’t find a damn thing. Not to mention, Chip and I had a long discussion about the good, the bad, and the ugly of local restaurants, and he told me his lunch spot over in Roscoe was Tia Juana’s. Unless he lied.”
* * * *
