EQMM, May 2012 (15 page)

Dear Sir,

Union Bank in Vienna executed a transfer of 25,000 (twenty-five thousand) Aus
trian schillings to your name, via our bank. You may collect this sum, in Polish currency, in person, or through your courier presenting check #275 enclosed herein.

Respectfully,

Mykhailo Ostrovsky, Director

"Well, we're almost on solid land, Mr. Marzel,” the detective addressed the moustachioed man who, now utterly deflated, collapsed into an armchair.

"Mr. Knobloch,” Tsihosha ordered suddenly, eyes gleaming, “would you be so kind as to hand me that red hat of Miss Sofia's."

He inspected the hat thoroughly, turning it over in his hands. Then he pulled out a penknife and began to cut off the lining, very carefully. When he snapped the last stitch, he revealed some papers that he proceeded to extract and lay on the table.

"Here's the answer to the mystery."

Two documents were identification cards. One for Marzel Prohnik, manager, and the other for Sofia Vislovska, seamstress. The third was check #275 for the sum of 25,000 schillings.

"I was right,” the detective said to the two criminals. “In the hour between Lviv and Hodiv, you managed to gain the confidence of the gullible and generous Mr. Sitetsky. He probably boasted to you that he was about to collect twenty-five thousand. He may even have shown you check number 275. He drained the shot of liquor presented to him by Miss Sofia's delicate hand, from the glass in which Mr. Marzel had dropped a few drops of his ‘mouth rinse’ which, in fact, is highly concentrated scopolamine. The drug knocks the victim out in a blink. You robbed Mr. Sitetsky and took the check that Mr. Marzel planned to cash at the bank introducing himself as Mr. Sitetsky's courier, and then, as Mr. Prohnik, elope in Miss Sofia Vislovska's company to some faraway land. Isn't that so, Mr. Marzel?"

The detective did not get an answer to his question. The man sat in the chair pale as a corpse, with his lips squeezed shut; the woman sobbed quietly at the edge of the bed. The detective turned to the commandant.

"I have one last favor to ask of you, Mr. Commandant. We still have twenty minutes before my train. Please deliver Mr. Marzel and Miss Sofia in handcuffs, under Mr. Knobloch's guard, to Reverov and surrender them to the police there. A confrontation with Mr. Sitetsky will corroborate our theory. As far as I'm concerned, I will take the same train, and will make sure to write up a report for the Reverov police on the way."

Copyright © 2012 Adam Stodor

Translation Copyright © 2012 by Nina Shevchuk-Murray

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The bombshell of 2011 in the crime-writing field was the Q.R. Markham/Quentin Rowan affair. The short version is that Markham/Rowan published a novel that was blurbed by some well-known writers and appeared to laudatory reviews. And it turned out that almost the entire book had been plagiarized, with passages being lifted from writers like John Gardner, Robert Ludlum, and Charles McCarry. When this was discovered, the blogger covering matters in most detail was Jeremy Duns at
The Debrief
(
jeremyduns.blogspot.com/
). Duns is himself an accomplished writer of espionage fiction and had blurbed Markham/Rowan's book. Duns pointed out many examples of the lifted passages, and then Markham/Rowan began posting comments in which he attempted to explain himself. It was all fascinating reading, and you can search the blog for the posts if you're so inclined. While you're doing that, you can read some of the other posts as well.

I suspect that readers of this magazine enjoy a good ghostly tale from time to time, and one of the best American writers of such stories was Russell Kirk, although he might be better known as a political theorist.
Ghostly Kirk
(
ghostly-kirk.weebly.com/
) is a website that provides links to information about Kirk, among other things. One of those other things is a recording of Kirk telling ghostly stories at his home in 1993. Another is a link to Kirk's reading of “There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding.” There's a lot to enjoy for fans of Kirk's work or ghostly tales in general.

The Passing Tramp
(
thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/
) is a fine new blog devoted to the classic crime novel. So far it's featured excellent discussions of Edmund Crispin and J. Jefferson Farjeon, with much more to come. Judging from what's appeared, I'd say that this blog is going to make a major contribution to crime-fiction studies.

Pulp 300
(
pulp300.wordpress.com/
) isn't interested in the classics, but it's based on a great idea: “Traversing the full spectrum of pulp fiction in 300 words or less. Noir. Gold Medal. Men's Adventure. Western. Crime. Sci-fi. Espionage. Sword & Sorcery. Hard Boiled. Vigilante. Zombie. War Pulp. Mystery. Thriller. Supernatural. Shared World. Sleaze. Detective. Horror. High Fantasy. Erotica.” It is what it says. Recent reviews of Scott Phillips’
The Adjustment
and Ken Bruen's
Headstone
will give you an idea of what to expect.

Bill Crider is the author of
The Wild Hog Murders
, published by St. Martin's Press.

Copyright © 2012 by Bill Crider

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Lina Zeldovich was born in Russia and came to the United States at age twenty-one, but her stories read as if the U.S. were the country of her birth. Her fiction has been published in the anthology
Murder New York Style,
four Deadly Ink anthologies, and many online magazines. She's the recipient of two Writer's Digest fiction awards, the winner of the 2008 Deadly Ink short story contest, and a finalist for the Moondance Film Festival in the short-story category (the latter for “The Call of the Red Desert").

It was the day the wind nastily herded the grey clouds across the sky while ripping them apart and dripping the water from their torn bodies onto the earth like sap from a tree. It was the day Martha always feared yet expected, because it was as inevitable as the changing of the seasons. All things in the world came to an end, and so would her peaceful existence on her Marsh Island once the old ghost returned to claim his due. Or his payback—depending on how one looked at it.

That morning, Martha found the motorboat docked on the beach, the spare pair of oars tied together on its bottom. There was nothing else in the boat, but Martha instantly knew Richard was back. It made sense. He had gotten twenty-five years for what he had done, and it had been that long. Now the two of them were stuck together on this little stretch of land, a doubling of the island's modest population. By the end of the day, there would be only one of them alive. The question was who.

The wild geese that nested on the north side of the island, in the narrow wooded patch that separated Martha's house from the beach, were anxious also. They flapped their wings and stretched their necks as they let out shrill cries of distress into the damp air, as if warning her of the invasion. It was as if they sensed the silent menace the newcomer brought to their home. The geese didn't have to worry, but Martha did, and she no longer had the law on her side. The law had worn out like the old flowery dresses she had slipped into when she used to meet Richard on the south meadow.

Martha's family had owned the island since the eighteen hundreds. It was a fifty-acre piece of land, twenty miles east off the coast of Maine—a thin, hilly line on the horizon on clear days. The north shore had a beach where the geese took their little ones to swim and play. The south side had a meadow where Richard and she met way back when. In between lay a deep perilous marsh hugged by wild woods all around. Martha inherited the island once her father passed away. She was the only child left when her little sister died shortly after turning fifteen. Martha and Lauren used to run around the island together, and they knew every inch of its land, every puddle of its water, and every trick of its dangerous marsh. That was why when mainland people said that Lauren must have slipped off the path, perhaps scared by a sudden burst of marsh gas in the dark, Martha had grown quiet and discontent. Lauren knew the path like the back of her hand. Lauren had walked it a thousand times. Lauren didn't slip.

The geese still screeched as Martha went home, tense with anticipation. The game had begun. It would be a slow race, because they both knew speed didn't guarantee victory, the same way an alibi didn't guarantee freedom. Besides, they were both old now. She had arthritis, and who knew what tricks Richard's health played on him after all these years. Did he keep himself healthy? A smart man would have. But she could never figure out whether Richard was smart. He was smug, which was why he did what he did, the egotistic self-centered bastard, but smart was not the adjective she'd use to describe him. She had him beat at the end and she would beat him again. Even if she had to lay her life on the line like a bunch of casino chips on a gambling table.

At home, she spent some time preparing for the race. She put on a jacket and a pair of waterproof pants. She found her father's old fishing boots, so tall she had to cut off the tops in order for her feet to reach the bottoms. They had non-skid rubbery soles, which were perfect for walking in the wetlands, but bad for running. They were two sizes too big, so even walking in them was difficult, but they'd come off easily when it was time to ditch them. Besides, she didn't expect to walk around much. Richard would wait for her in the north woods, near the house and his boat. Even if he was nostalgic about the south meadow, he wouldn't dare to cross the marsh. He didn't know the path.

Martha left the house, locked the door, and shuffled down the stairs in her fishing boots, two sizes too big.

Richard saw her first. She was roaming through the woods, leaning heavily on her walking stick, her boots making swishing noises on the leafy soil. That's why she didn't hear him. She only heard him when he called her name. He was about twenty feet away and she couldn't see him very clearly, yet she noticed that he had gotten old. Time did this to people, and he sure did time.

She stood for a few moments, not knowing how to start the conversation. She'd let him speak first, if he had the words.

He uttered his version of a hello. “It's been a long time."

"Sure has,” Martha uttered hers.

There was more silence.

"You've changed,” he observed. “Not a lot, but somewhat."

Martha took time to reply. “You haven't,” she finally answered.

He grinned, showing his bad teeth in an unkind smile.

"That's a lie. I've changed. Prison changes people."

Martha pursed her lips, waiting. The wind gushed, the droplets of water fell from the sky spattering her salt-and-pepper hair. It was Richard who started it all, so she was letting him have the floor.

"So how have you been, Martha?” Richard asked, still not moving. “You look healthy. You ever get married and have kids and family, and all that?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Martha sighed. “I just stayed on my island,” she said simply. It was too hard to explain. Perhaps she was one of those people who only fall in love once.

Richard waited motionlessly.

"You didn't do right by me, Martha,” he finally said. “You didn't do right by me."

"I did what I had to do."

"You lied, Martha!” He burst out in anger. “You lied to the judge! I never did anything. I wasn't even on the island that night."

"You were here the last warm night of October."

"Your sister never wrote that note. She couldn't have! I never promised to meet her!"

Martha swallowed hard. “I found it under her bed. I didn't have it the first day of the trial, but I found it later."

"You're lying!” Richard snapped. “You knew the judge was going to set me free because I was innocent, so you made it up. You were mad at me, Martha, you were jealous and you'd do anything to send me to jail."

A slow fury rose from the bottom of Martha's gut like the marsh gas that bubbled up through its spongy surface until it broke free into the air. He had nerve, that bastard.

"I wanted justice!” she croaked, her voice suddenly hoarse and failing. “I was not jealous!"

"Yes, you were,” he retorted. “You were jealous of your sister. You still are. She was more of a woman than you ever were! You were a cold fish while she had hot blood in her little body. Too bad things worked out the way they did."

Martha choked on her reply. She knew what Richard was trying to do. He wanted to drive her mad with anger, challenge her to the first move—and have her fail. But she wasn't going to fall into that trap. She hit Richard with his own weapon instead. Anger was a powerful instrument, and he never dealt well with it.

"Lauren left the note on the dresser before she went to see you that night,” she said calmly. “The wind must've blown it off so it stayed under her bed until I found it the morning I had to go to court. She said you were coming to pick her up."