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

“Is that what happened?”

“In a way. After Pablo started on her as usual, Rosa grabbed a frying pan and beat him to death.”

They continued walking along the beach and down to the yacht. Wellman went first, then helped pull Javier aboard. Shadows from the mast lay across the deck like another dead body.

Javier pointed to the scuff marks on the deck. “Someone was dragging a body.”

“So you think Murillo was right about Jeff killing his brother, throwing the body overboard, then murdering Esme as well?”

“The body was Benny’s — his sandals with rubber soles would make marks like those, but look how crazy they go. This way and that. Jeff is a strong man. He would have dragged his brother in a straight line and dumped the body overboard. Besides, Esme was struck on the back side of her skull, on the right. From that angle, a right-handed man must have hit her from behind. Jeff is left-handed. He didn’t kill either one of them. I believe, like you, that he was asleep.”

Wellman shook his head. “Then who?”

“Jeff said Esme went to her room when the two brothers ate the dorado, then he went to sleep. The sardines in her stomach prove that she woke up and ate later, taking a tin from the galley. I think that she and Benny got into a fight when he told her she was crazy to think he was going to marry her. You see over there?” He nodded at the cutting board and fork. “You see what’s missing?”

Wellman stared for a few seconds, then said, “The knife.”

“A gutting knife would be long and sharp and easy for a woman to use. I think she stuck it in him, as fast as Rosa Orestes hit her husband with a frying pan. Then she struggled with his body, dragging it this way and that, until she was able to dump it overboard along with the knife.”

“Then who killed her?”

Javier rested a hand on the long boom of the mast. “It was windy that night. I was out in a boat myself and felt those waves. As she dumped the body, the boom must’ve swung over and hit her on the head. It didn’t kill her then, but it started the hemorrhage. That explains what we found downstairs. She broke the framed photograph of her with Benny — that made sense, given the way he’d treated her. So did throwing his passport overboard, to make it seem like he had run out on her.”

“Benny running out on her — that would have been too unbelievable.”

“To somebody clear-headed, but to someone in Esme’s state... Look at everything else she did.”

“You mean the way she packed.”

“Yes. Leaving money behind, and Benny’s clothes mixed in with hers. The blow to the head was making her confused. She put on one red sneaker and one black. She went to the refrigerator to get ice for her head, wrapping the ice in a towel. That’s the wet towel we found beside her head — it wasn’t from the Champagne bottle. Confused, she dropped the ice tray, still half full, in the hallway. Maybe she went into the salon to wake Jeff to get her to a doctor. Maybe she didn’t even know where she was and just stumbled downstairs and died. The hemorrhaging in her brain finally killed her.”

Wellman said, “So when Jeff woke up, he probably didn’t know what to think. He saw the dead woman and figured his brother had left him holding the bag. So he panicked and ran, just like he said he did.” Wellman shook his head. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Sergeant... Sergeant?”

Walking aft, Javier sat beside the tiller, eyed the deep-sea tackle at his feet, and sighed. He felt the weight of an imaginary rod hooking a giant dorado, fighting it alone surrounded by the ocean. He closed his eyes; the motion of the evening tide almost made him believe he was there.

Wellman’s hand was on his shoulder, and the American said, “We need to tell Captain Murillo about your theory.”

So far out into the ocean. Just him and the dorado and the sun glinting hard off the waves. He didn’t want to come back, but policemen always had to do their duty.

His eyes blinked open. “Murillo won’t believe that a local woman was the murderer. Where’s the big fish? No, señor. Besides, he’ll never admit that he was wrong and a simple sergeant was right.”

“Not such a simple sergeant.”

Javier stood and stared out at the sea. “Tell him the idea was yours. Then at least he’ll have to take it seriously.”

“I couldn’t. That’s not right.”

Perhaps it was the alcohol, but Javier finally felt free to speak his mind. “You Americans always say how much you care about what’s right. Yet you helped that bastard Trujillo rule our country for thirty years.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Not so long for someone like Murillo. You saw how he smiled while he talked about the old days when his father, working for Trujillo, used to torture innocent people. Not so long for some of us. Not so long for Esmeralda Hernandez. If your Benny Cassidy had cared so much about what was right, he wouldn’t have treated her like a whore. And she wouldn’t have killed him.”

Javier massaged his eyes. “I’m sorry, señor, I think maybe I’m a little drunk.”

“You’ve got a right to speak your mind. I still don’t feel right about taking credit for solving the case.”

“What choice do you have, if you want to see justice done? Besides, the medical examiner’s final report should confirm that Esme died from a slow hemorrhage.”

And so it did. Captain Murillo was not convinced that Esmeralda Hernandez was a murderess, but there was not enough evidence to hold Jeff Cassidy. On the day of his release, the American took the next flight to Miami. For nearly a month, the Dominican government, with technical assistance from the United States, searched the coastline for Benny Cassidy’s remains. Although the body was not recovered, the FBI closed its file on the case, giving a commendation to the agent in charge.

Six months later, Wellman took his vacation in the Dominican Republic. He invited a friend to go deep-sea fishing. And on a day when the sun glinted like flint off the ocean, he watched as Javier showed him how to reel in a dorado.

Copyright © 2010 Ronald Levitsky

An Edgar Allan Poe Award winner and the record holder in the EQMM

Readers Award competition, Doug Allyn is one of the best short story writers of his generation — and probably of all time. He is also a novelist with several critically acclaimed books in print. The latest,

The Jukebox King, was published in Europe by Payot & Rivages in November 2009. It’s the second Allyn novel published to great success overseas that is still available for first U.S. publication (editors take note!).

“Is that him?” Marcy asked. “Wait! Don’t turn. Is it him?”

“How can I tell if I can’t look?” Flo said. The two women were seated at a table in the Jury’s Inn, a busy singles bar near the Murphy Hall of Justice, downtown Detroit. A clean, well-lighted room, garnished with ferns, bustling with yuppie couples and singles cheerfully cruising for Mr. Right or Miss Right for Tonight. Clattering with cocktail chatter and pickup lines.

The tables are small, but quite tall, each seat offering a hawk’s-eye view of the crowded room. Marcy had chosen a corner table tucked behind a bank of ferns. Near the rear exit.

“Sorry, Flo, I’m jumpy as a cat. First dates are the pits. Check him out, please, but forgodsake don’t gawk.”

“I never gawk.” Flo grinned. “I’ve been known to ogle, though.” The two women were a sharp contrast. Flo dressed in Western butch, a denim jacket over a Toby Keith T-shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots with hammered silver toes. Her fiery red hair was cropped short as a man’s.