Тимоти Уилльямз - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

“Yeah. Well, I hate to ask you this, Cel, but after you left the Hotel Madrid night before last for that ‘other appointment’ of yours, you didn’t happen to go anywhere near the Second National Bank on Lexington, did you?”

“I–I—”

Inspector Wretched Breen shook his head sadly. “I thought you had more moral fiber than that, Celery.”

“But, Dad, they said they’d cream me if I didn’t pay what I owed them!”

“Well, you’re in the soup now, son, I can tell you that.”

And, as if someone had propped him upright in a glass of red ink, Celery’s face flushed a bright, embarrassed crimson.

Copyright (c); 2005 by Josh Pachter & Jon L. Breen.

This new story “deals with themes of justice, redemption, and whether a crime might not serve a greater good in spite of the harm done,” says David Dean. “A trip to pick up my son from school in West Virginia inspired it.” After years of producing exclusively short stories, David Dean has finally written a novel, which he plans to send out to publishers soon. By day, he’s still on the police force in his New Jersey resort town.

The grey drizzle accompanied him all the way from Frederick, muting the increasingly dramatic landscape of thickly forested mountains and steep ravines; cloaking both the budding signs of spring and his own previously buoyant mood. Desmond had started his trip with the carefree abandon of a schoolboy playing hooky, and even the rigors of negotiating I-95 and the Baltimore Beltway had failed to dampen his spirits. It was only as he entered the foothills of western Maryland and the Alleghenies hove into view that he had felt a slight tightening of his chest — a claustrophobic reaction to the sight of the thin ribbon of highway he drove winding in and out of sight, and finally being swallowed whole by the mist-shrouded mountains.

Desmond cracked his window an inch and plugged a cigarette into his mouth, firing it up with the dash lighter. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out in a steady stream that was whisked out the window and tattered to pieces. As he climbed upwards, long tendrils of fog coiled and uncoiled in streamers that undulated down the slopes to the highway, where they, like his cigarette smoke, were torn and scattered by the passage of automobiles. Desmond had the sensation of leaving the solid world and entering one that receded from direct scrutiny, yet would creep up threateningly on the unwatchful. He sighed, yearning now for his journey’s end and the welcome mundanity of a chain motel, then flicked his cigarette angrily out the window like a shot across the bow of his uneasiness.

Desmond was not tolerant of dark moods, as his was generally a nature of high spirits, and yes, a dangerous temper when fueled by alcohol. As this was one of his abstemious lulls, he found it especially irksome to be beset by depression, however fleeting. He worked too hard at remaining sober to suffer gladly the black morning-after feeling normally reserved for binges.

Yet he was not an insensitive man, and suspected he understood the true source of his moodiness — in a word, family. Obstensibly, this was a trip to retrieve his nineteen-year-old son from his freshman year of college; in reality, it was an attempt at repair and reconciliation, not only with his boy, but his wife Linda as well. She had pled a heavy work load at the realty company where she was an agent as an excuse for staying back, but Desmond understood that this long, lonely trip was to be his penance.

“My own via dolorosa,” he chuckled irreverently, glancing hastily at the passing lane to see if anyone had noticed him talking to himself. But there was no one there, and he began his steep, grateful descent into the narrow valley that the city of Cumberland, and his hotel, lay folded within.

Desmond was surprised, and not a little taken aback, at the gritty, urban quality of Cumberland. He had expected something far more small-town and “countrified,” and since he had not made the previous treks to his son’s school with Linda, he was unprepared for the jumble of red-brick, turn-of-the-century buildings that lay squeezed into the tight cleft provided by the mountains. The highway was elevated for its passage through the town, and Desmond was allowed an almost aerial view before reaching his exit. A broad, fast-flowing canal ran to his left, while a series of railroad tracks followed the same constricted path to his right, intertwining and dividing several times within the heart of the city. Even as he watched, a freight train crawled smokily into view, the wail of its horn mournful and fraught with warning.

Desmond slowed and turned into his exit, then braked suddenly, several times, as the ramp corkscrewed its way to the city streets, his tires making little barking sounds as they gripped the wet roadway. Fortunately, signs were posted all along his way directing him to the hotel, as there was no line of sight for more than a block that was not obstructed by buildings or the pillars of the overpass. The feeling of claustrophobia that had begun in the foothills now deepened as he parked and retrieved his overnight bag from the car. All around him were three- to six-story buildings with little or no space betwixt them, while mountains crowded up close as if to lean in and watch. Above it all, clouds ran streaming and grey, obscuring and connecting each peak and sealing off the valley beneath like the lid on a kettle. Desmond felt buried.

The hotel was exactly as he expected, and desired — modern and anonymous — and he breathed a little easier in such familiar surroundings. His mood was further buoyed by the clerk retrieving his reservation from the computer without a hitch. He couldn’t remember how many times in his business travels he had had to dig through his wallet, or address book, for some torn slip of paper containing his confirmation number, while some somnambulant desk jockey gazed vacantly on. If he were in his drinking mode, he usually gave them an earful on their qualifications, IQ, and possibly their family antecedents; the last depending on how well they took the first two. But that was then, and Desmond was happy to reach his room and find that hot water was in abundance for his shower. He emerged clean, refreshed, and anxious to try the dining room on for size.

The dining area was large and murky; the subdued lighting combining with the gloom of the day outside to give the room a dreamy, underwater quality. Desmond found he was one of only four people there, and the hostess had seated them far apart. He surmised from this that the restaurant had too many servers and too few customers — the hostess was trying to spread the “wealth.” Obviously, he thought drily, his server was in no particular hurry to snatch a piece of that limited bounty, as he had been seated for five minutes without so much as a glass of water. He turned his attention to the scene outside the window at his elbow.

Another train (or was it the same he had seen on entering town?) was inching its way along the sprawl of tracks at the rear of the hotel. Even at the walking pace the engineer maintained, Desmond could feel the rumble of its passage through the seat of his spindly chair. He looked back over his shoulder to see if he could spot the last car, but the colorful array of brilliant blue and yellow cars extended around a bend and out of sight. They were the only color he had seen in hours. The crack of glass against pressed wood spun him around to find his water waiting for him, along with a teenaged girl with short bleached hair and a jewel in her nostril. She stood poised with pen and pad as if she, not he, had been forced to wait.

“May I take your order?” she asked tersely.