Allyn Allyn - Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Vol. 135, No. 1. Whole No. 821, January 2010

Took him a moment, but he figured out what it was. It was relief.

He took out his cell phone, thought for a moment, put it back in his pocket. The diner had a pay phone, and he spent a couple of quarters and placed a call. The girl who answered put Sully on the phone, and Colliard said, “That order you placed the other day, I wanted to tell you I’ll be able to fill it tomorrow.”

“You sure of that, are you?”

“It might take an extra day.”

“A day one way or the other doesn’t matter. The question is, do you have the goods for the transaction.”

“I do.”

“It seems to me,” Sully said, “that it’s a hard question to answer ahead of the event, if you take my meaning.”

“I know it for a fact,” Colliard said. “What I did, I went and took inventory.”

“You took inventory.”

“Checked the shelves myself.”

He finished his coffee and stayed at the table long enough to make another phone call. He used his cell phone for this one, there was no reason not to, and called his own home. The first three rings went unanswered. Then his wife picked up just before the phone went to voice mail.

He asked how it went at the doctor’s office, and was pleased to learn that everything went well, that the baby’s heartbeat was strong and distinct, that all systems were go. “He said I’m going to be a perfectly wonderful mother,” she reported.

“Well, I could have told you that.”

“You sound—”

“What?”

“Better,” she said. “Stronger. More upbeat.”

“I’m going to be a perfectly wonderful father.”

“Oh, you are, you are. I’m just happy you’re in such good spirits.”

“It must have been the casserole. I had some for breakfast.”

“Not cold?”

“No, I microwaved it.”

“And it was good?”

“Better than good.”

“Not too spicy? So early in the day?”

“It got me off to a good start.”

“And it’s been a good day,” she said. “That much I can hear in your voice. Did you—”

“I got the job. Well, case by case, the way I said, but they’re going to be giving me work.”

“That’s wonderful, honey.”

“It may take awhile to get back where we were, but we’re finally pointed in the right direction again, you know?”

“We’ll be fine.”

“Damn right we will. And we’ll be able to keep the house. I know you had your heart set on a trailer, but—”

“I’ll get over it. What time will you be home? I should really get dinner started.”

“Let’s go out.”

“Really?”

“Nothing fancy,” he said. “I was thinking along the lines of pizza and a Coke.”

©2009 by Lawrence Block. Black Mask Magazine title, logo, and mask device copyright 2009 by Keith Alan Deutsch. Licensed by written permission.

Ronald Levitsky recently retired from a long career teaching middle school social studies. He’s putting his extra time to use returning to his writing. In the 1990s, the Chicago-area author produced six mystery novels, all published to strong reviews. (See 1994’s The Innocence That Kills, a Nate Rosen legal mystery from Scribner.) His new story for us, his first since 1989, is set in the Dominican Republic, where he once taught school.

Far in the distance, it winked under the sinking sun like a rich man’s gold tooth. Shifting carefully so as not to capsize the rowboat, Javier shaded his eyes and watched it glint again, then hold. A boat maybe, or a trick of his tired eyes. The light vanished. He remembered what his grandmother had told him as a boy. A light in the water was a ghost. Flashing once, it was an omen from the dead. But to linger as it had; that was something different. Not an omen, but an invitation.

There had been a storm out at sea. The waves continued to grow, pushing and pulling the boat like a tug toy. Javier tried adjusting his heavy body as a counterweight. A sudden gust of wind, the salt spray slapping his face, made him put down his fishing rod, grab the oars, and row for shore.

The invitation did not take long to arrive. Knocking on Javier’s door early the next morning, Rivera reported what had happened, then waited as Javier fumbled into his uniform. They stopped for coffee and those soft rolls dripping with butter at the Pasteleria de Mertha. No need to rush for the dead. Pawing at yet another grease stain on his shirt, Javier struggled to his feet, sighing almost as loudly as the chair. Ten minutes later they arrived at the pier. Slender palms swayed in the wind, and a new collection of driftwood had piled onto shore from last night’s waves.

The yacht was long and sleek. It had run aground, the front end digging like a plow deep into the sand, while the rear waddled under the lapping water. It tilted on its port side as if to offer its name, Island Girl, painted on the starboard. The kind of craft that Javier, as a boy working at the pier, had cleaned and repaired. The yacht was forty feet long, with a cabin of deeply polished oak and brass railings. The main sail had been lowered and reefed around the long boom. The jib, a smaller sail in front, had also been secured.

Rivera said, “The old Haitian Petain found the boat around seven this morning. Tied it up tight, took care of the sails, then went on board. That’s when he saw her. He ran to the station and just stood there until I opened up at eight. I thought maybe he was drunk or a little crazy, but then he took me back here and... well, you’ll see.”

Rivera had left a rickety ladder jammed against the hull. After scampering up, he helped Javier climb on board. Because of the way the yacht listed, everything was on an angle, like an amusement park’s funhouse.

Javier eyed the two sets of deep-sea tackle laid carelessly below the tiller, their lines tangled. They would probably cost a police sergeant like him a year’s salary.

The two men walked carefully on the slippery deck into the navigation station, where a sleeping bag had been unrolled onto the floor. A few T-shirts and jeans were bundled in a corner. Javier went through the pile and found an American passport belonging to a Jeffrey Cassidy, age thirty-two, with a Miami address.

They returned to the deck. A long oak cutting board lay on the port side, where a fish had recently been gutted. Scales and bones framed the board, on which rested a two-pronged fork, its handle also of oak.

A series of black scuff marks trailed along the railing for about ten feet. They started, stopped, and meandered in a crazy fashion. Javier followed the trail, when suddenly the wind kicked up and the boom swung toward him.

“Watch it, Hugo!” Rivera shouted, grabbing the boom and tying it back in place. Then he said, “The body’s below deck.”

Rivera scampered down a narrow stairway.

The boat shifted under a wave, and Javier stumbled on the stairs, tearing one of the railings from the wall and almost stepping on the body. It lay facedown on the thick blue carpet of the main salon.

“A real beauty,” Rivera said.

She had long black curly hair and cocoa-colored skin. Probably a Dominican like them. Although she was small — maybe 120 pounds — the green pullover and gray sweat pants couldn’t hide her buxom figure. She wore sneakers — one shoe red and the other black.

Javier bent on one knee and gently brushed away the woman’s hair to see her face. Rivera was right. She was beautiful, probably in her early twenties. Her eyes, almond-shaped, gave her an Asian cast.

“What do you think killed her?” Rivera asked. “Can’t see any marks or blood.”

Javier studied the girl’s body, lifted then gently lowered her head and shoulders. No marks were visible. He considered undressing her, but it seemed indecent. The coroner could do that at the mortuary.