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

Molly was surprised. “You would have stayed married, knowing?”

He shrugged. “Hey, this is Hollywood. Unconventional marriages are common. Besides, she was easy to get along with.” He paused.

“Also, she made a lot of money for you, and you managed to have your affairs on the side.”

He colored and his voice became sharper. “You make me sound crass. Whether you believe it or not, I cared about Ramona. I did my best to assure her nothing would change. I would never have gone out of town if I’d realized she was still so upset. But after a few days, she seemed to calm down. We had already made an appointment with a therapist — we were going to work everything out. She actually appeared happy the day I left.” He put his elbows on his desk and his head in his hands. “What are you going to do?” he mumbled.

“I have to meet with Rosa this afternoon.”

“You can’t tell her!” He looked up at Molly, his face actually livid.

“Don’t you think she and her family have a right to know? What about the other ‘cursed’ sisters?”

He stood up. “Consider the consequences! How do you think their families and neighbors will treat them if it comes out? Those people don’t have access to therapists to help them deal with such information! At least now, they have a place in their society, albeit a lesser one. But if you tell them—” He broke off.

His passion surprised Molly. He’d obviously given the matter a lot of thought. And he had a point. But her client was paying her to discover the truth. What was the right thing to do?

Molly was still agonizing when Rosa arrived in her office late that afternoon. The young Latina sat down in Tom’s old chair and looked at Molly apprehensively. “What have you found out?”

Molly studied the beautiful woman and pain shot through her heart. Rosa looked so much like her famous sister had when she first came to the U.S. It was almost as though Molly were speaking to the younger Ramona. The thought struck her: What if she had had the chance to prevent the singer from discovering she had AIS?

“I wish I could answer all your questions, but all I can tell you is that Ramona definitely took her own life. There is no possibility of foul play.”

“But why? ” Sorrow and disbelief were evident in her face.

“I’m afraid she chose to keep her reasons to herself.” Molly felt a stab of guilt as she spoke the words which were not entirely true. Yet Ramona had chosen not to tell her family that she and her beautiful sisters, aunts, and nieces had inherited androgen insensitivity syndrome — that their lush bodies, genetically programmed to be male, were producing plenty of testosterone, but a broken gene on their X chromosomes prevented the hormone from doing its job. Molly didn’t explain that nature, in fickle efficiency, had been converting the useless testosterone into estrogen since they’d been in their mother’s wombs, altering their physical development so that by the time of birth they appeared to be normal, healthy little girls, when in fact they were highly feminized males.

Rosa looked pensive. “I have been doing much thinking. Perhaps Hollywood was the worst place for Ramona to live. Here there is so much fuss made about celebrity women who are having babies — even when they aren’t married. They show off their big tummies like — how do you say? — trophies. Maybe — maybe Ramona worried they would wonder why she and Tony didn’t have any children. Maybe she felt like a fraud being called ‘The Quintessential Woman.’”

Molly held her breath, stunned. Rosa had come dangerously close to the truth.

The woman reached into her purse to pay Molly’s fee, but the investigator waved her protests off. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be more helpful.” After Rosa left, Molly leaned back in her chair and reflected that she couldn’t have accepted a fee when she was withholding vital information. Yet, in some strange way, she felt a much deeper obligation to Ramona — a woman she’d never met but whose recorded voice would always haunt her.

Copyright © 2010 Stephanie Kay Bendel

“Many scholars draw parallels between ancient Rome’s Saturnalia, celebrated over several days in late December, and today’s Christmas,” Margaret Maron told EQMM . “The use of evergreen wreaths to decorate the homes, the exchange of gifts, the feasting, caroling, etc. Some even claim that Santa’s red cap is a lineal descendent of the pointed red wool freedman’s cap that everyone wore throughout the festival to denote a temporary equality that added to the cheer of the season. (Incidentally, according to my Latin dictionary, ‘Io’ has the same pronunciation and general meaning as our modern ‘Yo!’)”

In a year of three emperors, my father had the bad judgment to champion publicly the cause of the second emperor and his bad judgment was compounded by a stubborn honor that would not allow him to recant when the besieging armies of the third emerged victorious.

On the first day of his trial, when it became evident that a verdict of treason would be passed against him, my father came home from court, added new codicils to his will, and wrote several letters. Then, kissing me tenderly and bidding farewell to his weeping household, he retired to his inner chamber to open his veins, for by law the property of a man convicted of treason is forfeited to the state; yet if he dies before such a verdict is rendered, he may dispose of his estate as he sees fit.

In thus anticipating the inevitability of his death, my father secured our inheritance.

My mother took this opportunity to end her own existence as well. That poor sickly lady had exhausted her life adhering to the old republican ideals of womanhood, mater and domina . She should have been the vestal instead of my aunt Statilia, who hid in a clothespress when the escort came to deliver her to the chief pontiff.

As the name AEelia Tertia plainly shows, I was the third daughter of AElius Fabius Marius, the only girl child to live past a first birthday. Each of the eight years between my single brother and myself had been marked by funeral rites for pathetic little scraps of humanity that never quite caught the breath of life; and although my mother sacrificed daily to all the goddesses of maternity, those annual beginnings of life which continued after my birth never again quickened into fruition.

My brother she handed over to pedagogues and tutors without a murmur, at the earliest possible age, that he should study all the usual subjects and be trained in martial arts and skills. One of her ancestors had been a general under Augustus, and during the reign of the deified Claudius, another had been part of the raid on Germania that recovered the lost eagles of Varus. Willingly had she dedicated the first locks of my brother’s hair to Mars, god of war.

In the matter of my education, however, she found the energy to resist my father almost to the point of disobedience, for she wished me to learn traditional virtues and to keep me ignorant of everything save spinning and weaving and ordering a household for my husband’s comfort.

“Have I not lived twenty-seven years without rhetoric and philosophy?” cried my mother. “What need has our daughter for aught beyond simple reading and enough ciphering to keep her servants from cheating her in the markets?”

“You have often praised my uniqueness,” Father said drily. “Should not AElia know how to manage her own property in case Marcus Porcius proves less the paragon for her than I have been for you?”

(I had been informally betrothed to the son of my father’s oldest friend since birth.)