Рон Гуларт - Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 13, Mid-December 1994

About a year ago, in AHMM’s December 1993 issue, we published a story called “Nobody Wins” by Charles Ardai. We are pleased to let you know that the story has been nominated for a Shamus Award for Best P.I. Short Story of 1993, given by the Private Eye Writers of America (PWA). The PWA awards will be announced at Bouchercon in October; we will bring you the complete list of nominees and winners in all categories in our February 1995 issue.

In the meantime, of course, we’ll keep our fingers crossed. Mr. Ardai has written ten stories for us starting with “From Zaire to Eternity” in 1989 (about a mysterious African diamond) and including such varied tales as “The Balancing Man,” which defies description but has to do with an old man on a tightwire in an old barn; “The Investigation of Things,” set in Sung Dynasty China about A.D. 1000; and “Carmine and the Christmas Presence,” the story of a woodcarver and a brush with magic, in 1992. He published his first story in EQMM when he was seventeen.

Ken Lester’s “A Boy Named Tzu” is his second story for AHMM, the first having been “Dance of the Hours” way back in 1962. He’s been doing other things in the interim, but tells us that once in 1969, while checking into a hotel in Geneva where he was to present an air safety seminar, he was startled to hear, coming over French radio in the lobby, the French announcer saying, “... la Danse des Heures, par Ken Lester,” followed by an adaptation of his story. An amazing coincidence, n’est-ce pas?

We have four new authors to welcome this time, who bring us four first stories. Frank Snyder, author of “The Slump,” is an attorney in rural New York who took up the practice of small town law recently after having been a partner in a large law firm in Washington, D.C. His most unusual cases, he tells us, “include trips to the Greenland ice cap for a government investigation of the Distant Early Warning System and representing the International Human Rights Law Group before the U.S. Supreme Court in a case involving the deportation of a convicted IRA terrorist.” His previous publications were such legal articles as “Employer Withdrawal from Multiemployer Bargaining.” “The Slump,” we promise, is a whole lot more fun.

Bobby Lee, author of “The Domino Drug Bust: A Love Story,” has also written professionally, but also only nonfiction. He says, “I am (in order of importance): (1) a hillbilly from the Ozarks; (2) a country music fan madly in love with Reba; (3) a Ph.D. in educational psychology who loved teaching and hated being a teacher.” He has taken up writing full time now, for which we, at least, are glad; “The Domino Drug Bust” is a delight.

Nancy Bartholomew, author of “Dead in the Water,” is a psychiatric social worker in private practice. She presently lives near Atlanta but grew up in Pennsylvania. “I began writing the songs I sang in little honky-tonks around Philadelphia, while in college. I also wrote poetry and short stories that were published in the college literary supplement and yearbook. I returned to writing after the birth of my second son. It was merely a case of write or go crazy.” Like her characters in this story, she sometimes goes fishing.

Maude Miller, author of “Out of Order,” is a registered nurse and a former teacher who says that she “won some money in a local writing contest (sponsored by, of all things, a casino in Nevada), and that got me started.” She lives in Idaho, where she grew up, and has “lived in Japan and traveled in the Orient and Europe, England especially... I started writing when my six-year-old students were out at recess; instead of using the old excuse of not having time to write, I first learned to quickly refocus my attention from the grisly details of murder to Beatrix Potter and Mrs. Tiggy Winkle.”

“Shouldn’t we keep that kid out of here?” said Corporal Hanley. “We don’t need some twelve-year-old poking around.”

Without thinking, Bunk Cummins nodded. Temple Buchanon’s body had just been removed from the parlor of the old farmhouse where she lived and gave voice lessons, and the M.E. and state lab people had left. He was staring at the bloodstains on the corner of the piano, not really seeing them.

Bunk looked at his new patrolman. This was Jeff Hanley’s second week on the job. He’d been a diesel mechanic in Elizabethville for seven years, had gotten tired of that, and had just graduated from the police academy in Pittsford. Basically he seemed a decent guy, might even make a good officer someday. In the meantime, though, he was pretty green around the gills, and Bunk had been spending a lot of time breaking him in.

“Hey!” Hanley waved his hand at the young girl standing in the doorway. Bony elbows poked out under a pink Catamount T-shirt, knobby knees showed under blue shorts. “Didn’t you see that ribbon we put up outside? You’re not supposed to cross it.”

The girl stared at him and turned away.

“I need some fresh air,” said Bunk. “Here, take this kit, see if you can find any prints the staties might have missed.” He stepped outside onto the freshly mown lawn. The warm sun felt good, gave him a fleeting sense that even in the midst of tragedy life goes on, the world continues to turn, the sun to shine. Across the drive and beyond a low snake-rail fence stood another house. He saw a white-haired head in the window watching them. Maddy Dufour, the neighbor who’d found the body earlier that morning. Two hours ago he’d taken her jumbled call. “Temple Buchanon... lying on the floor... all twisted up...” He would walk over shortly and question her.

“I’m sorry,” said a voice to one side of him. “I didn’t mean to sneak in or anything.”

It was the girl again, standing outside the ribbon and holding onto a balloon-tire bike. She looked twelve, thirteen at the most. He walked over.

“Did you know Miss Buchanon?”

The girl nodded vigorously. “I live like half a mile from here. In that brown trailer by the pig farm?”

He knew the trailer. Had seen a rather blowsy-looking woman outside the last time he drove by.

“Temple was...” Tears trickled down the girl’s face. “She was giving me voice lessons. Wouldn’t let me pay for them. ’Course I probably couldn’t have. My daddy was killed in a logging accident ten years ago, and Mom, well, she doesn’t make a lot. We get food stamps,” she added a little defiantly.

“Nothing wrong with that. A lot of people need food stamps.”

A small grin broke out on the tearstained face. “Thanks. I think—” the girl blushed and looked down at her sneakers “—I think I like you. My name’s Tracy, by the way. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“When did it happen?”

Should he share information with a twelve-year-old? Something about her, though, looked older than twelve, much older. Some kids grow up fast in this vale of tears. “The M.E. estimated around eight last night. She’ll have a more accurate estimate after she does an autopsy. You know what an M.E. is?”

Tracy thought a minute. “Murder expert?”

Bunk went back inside where Hanley was dusting the piano bench for prints. “I’m going to check with Mrs. Dufour,” he said. He looked at the throw rug scrunched up on the floor. “Looks like Miss Buchanon put up a fight.”

“Not much of one, judging from the size of her. She couldn’t have weighed over a hundred pounds. Dammit anyway.”