Питер Ловси - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 152, Nos. 5 & 6. Whole Nos. 926 & 927, November/December 2018

For the rest of the night, Ray felt strangely calm. Bob received a call from the duty officer at the station and had to leave early. Ray and Patricia finished their meals and took their drinks out onto the deck.

He didn’t know how to broach it, he’d never been very good with words. “When I was young—” he said.

Patricia was resting her legs on his lap. She raised an eyebrow. “You were a real looker.”

Ray smiled and stroked her ankle. He thought about pushing on, about searching again for the right words, but instead he leaned over and kissed her on the lips, thinking that maybe it was better to leave it like this.

When Ray walked into the station the next day, he immediately knew that something was wrong. Bob, who was normally so convivial and full of cheer, stood behind the counter, stony-faced.

“So, you’re here to confess, are you?”

The words came as a shock. Ray hadn’t expected it to happen so quickly. He thought he’d at least have a few days. The black liquid surged up, making his legs shake, and he thought for a moment his whole body might buckle. He rested his hand on the counter and opened his mouth to explain, but he could already hear how weak and feeble he sounded.

Bob walked around from the other side of the counter and slapped Ray on the back. “I’m just kidding, mate. You should see the look on your face.”

Bob, still chuckling, led Ray into a side room. “Hey, listen, you know how you asked me about that cold-case business last night? Well, it turns out the public-affairs unit in Sydney made a mistake. We only have permission to collect samples for the Wilson case. Anyway, it got me thinking — no wonder so many people in town have been nervous about the screening. Every petty criminal’s terrified we’re going to bust them for a burglary or a break-in. Apparently Stanley’s been in a right old panic.”

Ray’s mind was wading through Bob’s words, trying to catch up. “So—”

Bob put on a pair of latex gloves and told Ray to open his mouth. “So, the newspaper’s publishing a correction tomorrow,” he said, brushing a small cotton swab against Ray’s inner cheek. “It’s going to make my life much easier, that’s for sure.”

Bob placed the cotton swab in a paper envelope and sealed it. He removed the gloves and threw them in a bin. He looked at Ray and raised his eyebrows. “That’s it. You’re done.”

He wasn’t sure if he should ask — maybe it wasn’t a good idea — but he had to know for sure. “So, just out of curiosity,” Ray said, trying to feign indifference, “that cold case you mentioned last night?”

“Mate, we’ve got our hands full with enough cases as it is.” Bob showed Ray to the door and shook his hand. “Anyway, thanks for coming in. It’s stupid, really. I mean, you were with me that night, but what can I say? Red tape. Hey, let’s catch up for a beer next week.”

Outside in the bright light, Ray felt giddy — a rush of elation that he had to temper. He stopped and glanced back at the station. He knew there was no serious prospect of him going back inside, but he didn’t want to return to his car yet either. The black liquid in his veins was receding, and as it seeped away, he realised what it was — not guilt or shame, but rather fear. It was almost gone now.

He briefly shut his eyes. He could see Jeannie walking along the cliffs at Barmouth Beach and for a moment he thought she must still be alive — somewhere, though perhaps not here. She kept racing ahead of him — jumping gracefully from rock to rock — and every now and again she would turn to him and wave, except somehow he couldn’t see her eyes.

As Ray got closer, she smiled and held out her palm. He paused and looked down at her hand, though not because he was contemplating taking it in his. He just wanted to stay there a little longer, in that moment, pretending that he might. And then, leaving Jeannie standing on the rocks, her arm outstretched, he turned and walked away.

© 2018 by Jehane Sharah

Dave Zeltserman writes everything from classical whodunits (as in the Julius Katz series) to gritty crime fiction (as in his novel Small Crimes, now a Netflix movie) to horror. His latest novel, Husk (Severn House, 2018), belongs loosely to the horror genre. Author Paul Tremblay has called it “a compelling, quirky, twisty, smart, page-turner mix of horror, satire, and even a little romance...”

“Put Katz on the phone.”

I felt my processing cycles flutter, which I’d experienced one other time and knew was a sensation akin to shuddering. It wasn’t hard to understand why I felt it again given that the voice I’d just heard belonged to Desmond Grushnier, someone Julius once called the most dangerous man alive. I told Julius that Grushnier wished to speak to him.

Julius, at that moment, was leaning back in his office chair reading an article in the current Wine Spectator about underrated Bordeaux vintages. A slight flicker showed in his eyes, otherwise nothing for the next 2.8 seconds.

“Archie, if this is some sort of crude joke—” he began.

“No joke. The devil’s on the line and you’ve been keeping him waiting. What do you want me to do?”

From the way Julius’s eyes slitted, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure he believed me, but he straightened up in his chair, lifted his cell phone, and commanded me to patch Grushnier through.

“Yes,” he said gruffly.

“Katz, you’re meddling where you shouldn’t be.”

“Where exactly is that?”

“You know damn well!”

“Interesting,” Julius said. “At the moment I’m reading about several Bordeaux blends that I’m considering purchasing. Later today I plan to be sampling cognacs at the Belvedere Club. I don’t see how either of those activities could possibly be of interest to you.”

Housed within my one-inch by two-inch titanium shell, which Julius wears as a tiepin, are audio and visual circuitry that allow me to “see” and “hear.” I also have a highly sophisticated neuron network that’s twenty years more advanced than anything thought possible, and that allows me to “think.” What I’m lacking are circuitry to simulate olfactory senses and feel environmental conditions, so the concepts of smell, as well as heat, cold, and humidity, are foreign to me, even if in the past I’ve imagined my processor generating excess heat while experiencing something that could best be described as anger. Still, during the 5.2 seconds we waited for Grushnier to respond, I could’ve sworn the temperature in Julius’s office dropped ten degrees, even though I have no idea what that would actually be like.

“Play these games at your own peril,” Grushnier warned, his voice icy enough to cause another shuddering sensation. “I could’ve let you blow up with your townhouse. Next time I just might.”

The line went dead.

The incident Grushnier referred to did indeed happen. A bomb had been planted in a crate of wine that was brought into Julius’s wine cellar, and Grushnier called Julius twenty-three seconds before the bomb was set to explode. While the call didn’t allow Julius time to rescue family photos or other heirlooms, nor his prized bottles of 1971 Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tache, it did allow him to escape with his life. The townhouse has since been rebuilt and Julius’s wine cellar restocked.

Julius put the phone down, took a sip of coffee, and asked if I knew how he was meddling.

“I couldn’t say.”

“Archie, what would be your best guess?”