Lawrence Block - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 2. Whole No. 834, February 2011

Mrs. Reiss opened the door. I didn’t recognize her for a moment, because she was wearing a track suit.

“You have to make sure he doesn’t go to my brother,” I said.

She didn’t speak and I realized I’d never heard her speak. All those years and I’d seen her shake her head, seen her eyes look at me. But never heard her voice. Suddenly that frightened me, someone who had so much silence inside of her, who’d raised a son who was a serial killer.

“He’s my brother and he’s dearer to me than anyone in this world,” I said.

I touched her hand. She flinched, and I knew then she’d do nothing. She was a woman who could not, would not, speak. This was her curse. She turned for an instant toward the garage. I pictured her son’s face, so pale and twisted in fury. There was no time to waste. Sunny had to be warned. My own foolish pride didn’t matter. I raced to his house, ran up his front steps, and found the front door unlatched.

I went inside, already starting to cry, wondering if I’d find his body on the floor. “Sunny,” I yelled, running into the living room. The white furniture was as clean as always, except for a glass of white wine knocked over onto the carpet. The spill resounded in my mind like a scream.

“Sunny,” I called out. I ran into the kitchen, where there was a door that led down the basement. A long time ago, my niece had fallen down those very steps. She’d been bouncing in a walker and pushed past the protective fence. I ran down the steps, the sound of her crashing walker echoing in my heart.

My brother was sitting on one of the bar stools, neat scotch in front of him. Pale, tired. But alive. “Thank God you’re all right,” I said, throwing myself into his warmth, though it was obvious he wasn’t all right.

“What happened?”

“Wendy’s left me,” he said. “She disappeared. We were supposed to meet for lunch today. She didn’t come to the restaurant. I can’t find her anywhere. She left me.”

Instantly I saw what had happened: Wendy coming home, Reiss waiting for my brother, finding his wife instead.

“No,” I whispered. “No.” Poor unloved Wendy. I thought of what I’d read about what Reiss had done to those women. Body parts found in the river, hands still clenched to ward off the terror.

“She didn’t leave you,” I sobbed. “This is my fault.”

“It’s not your fault, Big Sis,” he said, his pale face reddening. “You know what she was like. I’ve been expecting her to leave me for years. Wendy was never happy with me.”

I put my hand on his hand, breathed in the clean smell of soap. “I have to tell you something, Sunny, and you’re not going to believe it. I’m so stupid.” I explained the whole thing. About how I’d been so desperate to get him a birthday present, how I’d come to know Reiss’s mother, how I’d just gone and tried to get her to call off her son, but the damage was done.

“He escaped from jail,” I finished up. “Reiss must have come looking for you and found Wendy instead. We’ll have to call the police. We’ll do it now. I’m so sorry.” I buried my head against his shoulder. I could feel the twitch of his heart underneath me.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Big Sis.” He breathed in deeply. “It was me. I killed her.”

He shook his head slightly, in a move I’d seen countless TV actors do. His face looked different, less genial than it had always been. How well did I know him? I loved him, but how well did I know him? I thought of my sister-in-law, always anxious and angry, always unhappy, always threatening to leave. “We had a fight.”

“I didn’t mean to do it, Big Sis. But what if...” He paused. “In a way this is like a gift, isn’t it? The police will assume Reiss killed her.”

Off in the distance, fire alarms sounded. Danger. The trinity of the hospital, school, and jail. I thought of what Wendy said all those years ago. That the bullies had recognized something in Jared Reiss. That they had picked on him for a reason. Her words had disturbed me then and stayed with me. Now I knew why. Because my brother should have recognized something was wrong with Jared too. He should have stayed away from him. It was empathy, not kindness, that caused him to befriend Reiss. He recognized another. But what could I do? I loved him. “Yes, Sunny,” I answered.

Copyright © 2010 by Susan Breen

Jack Colby, classic-car detective, is the latest addition to Amy Myers’s impressive range of sleuths, who include chimney sweep Tom Wasp and chef Auguste Didier. Jack is the brainchild not only of Amy but her car buff American husband James, whose nose for a classic car is every bit as good as Jack’s. The first Jack Colby novel, entitled Classic in the Barn , is due out from Severn House shortly after this issue goes on sale. Also not to be missed: her new Marsh and daughter mystery, Murder on the Old Road .

I love cars. I love women. But just at that moment there was no contest. Believe it or not, I was staring at a Cord 812 Beverly. Nineteen thirty-seven, of course. The year. What a beauty. A convertible sedan. All those graceful curves, in and out in all the right places. Poetry? Maybe. But there was a problem. How could such a stunner come to be painted in different shades of clashing red? And badly painted at that. It looked as if a kid of five had set to with a paintbrush, dipping into three jam jars of garish paint as the fancy took him. The convertible top was cherry coloured, the body pillar-box scarlet, and the luscious curves of the wheel arches maroon. Every so often there was a patch of the original cream colour left where the brush had either missed it or decided to economise on paint.

Appalled, I peered in through the driver’s window to see what havoc might have been wreaked on the upholstery. It was then the second problem hit me. There was a blanket over something heaped up in the backseat. At the very moment I took this in, the blanket slipped a little. The “something” was a woman, and from the look of the face that had been revealed, she was dead. Very dead. Even worse, if that were possible, I thought I’d seen her before.

“What’s up, Jack?” someone shouted at me.

Even as I punched in 999 for the police, the owners of the other dozen or so classic cars that had already arrived at the show were beginning to move in towards me, alerted by my yell of horror.

“Keep away,” I shouted back. “Crime scene.” And to make my point even clearer: “Murder.” That much was clear to me from those staring eyes, purple lips, and protruding tongue, even if the glimpse of a scarf taut around the neck hadn’t convinced me.

Only one of the onlookers refused to be daunted by my warning. Johnnie Darling, from Country Classic Car Events Ltd., who was organising this show, must have come rushing up from the main gates while I was feeding instructions over my mobile. He isn’t my favourite person, but he knows his stuff, so I told him to “Get back and stop any more cars coming in.”

“Right, Jack.” Johnnie promptly obeyed. He’d have to make hasty alternative arrangements for the other hundred or two classic cars on their merry way to what they thought would be a peaceful car show and a chat with fellow fans.

That left me to guard the scene, standing stock-still in order not to muddy it up with more footprints and so forth. The other owners stared at me as though I were the wizard in the midst of a pentagon while they kept their safe distance.

“Anyone see this Cord arrive?” I called out.