Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 104, No. 4 & 5. Whole No. 633 & 634, October 1994

The news of Guy Subjack’s death was as shattering to Irina as the car crash that had taken his life. That it might have been an accident the police, according to news reports, were unable to disprove, although there were no skid marks, the weather was clear, and there was evidence Subjack had been drinking heavily before leaving the club.

Only Irina knew the truth. A letter arrived at the house the morning after Guy’s death.

My dearest Irina, I told you the only way it would ever be over between us was if one of us ended up in the cemetery. I don’t want to go on living without you. Maybe this is the only way I can be sure you’ll never forget me. Guy.

As Darwin had known Guy Subjack from the club, his failure to mention the man’s death might have seemed peculiar to Irina had she been less overwhelmed by the most acute feelings of guilt. That Guy had been hinting at suicide rather than murder during that last meeting had never entered Irina’s mind, and how could she not have assumed he must have been her assailant when the attack followed so closely upon that final meeting? Now she was left with the conviction that Darwin had been right, the intruder could only have been some demented stranger.

But it was the conviction that Guy had loved her, loved her as perhaps no other man but Darwin ever had, that excited the most excruciating sense of guilt. The knowledge that she was responsible for the death of a young man who had loved her with a truly romantic passion was almost too burdensome to bear.

That night as they were getting into bed Irina’s sense of remorse overpowered discretion. Almost without forethought she told Darwin about the affair with Guy Subjack and how it had ended.

This emotional upheaval seemed not to disturb Darwin. Calmly, he removed his watch and placed it on the stand beside the bed.

“You mustn’t let it upset you, my dear. And I’m not blind, you know. I was quite aware of your relationship with Subjack.”

Irina recoiled with a startled look. “But we were so careful!”

“Not careful enough.” There was a certain unmistakable smugness in his tone.

“And you said not a word!”

“We both said a great many words, after Alex. You see, I really did believe you, Irina. That Alex would be the last.”

“And I meant it, darling,” she cried. “I truly did. But then I met Guy and... You do believe me now, I know, that it can never happen again. After that awful experience I could never look at another man but you. I’m a different person now. I’ve learned my lesson.”

Darwin regarded her with a sorrowful look. “I wish I’d known it was over between you and Subjack. But then it might not have made any difference. It might have happened again with someone else. You’re rather like the dragonfly, my love, beautiful, alluring, and voracious. I decided I had to try something drastic. You see, I believed it might possibly change everything if you felt you owed me your life. It worked far better than I’d dared hope.”

“What are you saying?”

“You’ve been honest with me, Irina. I must be honest with you. I staged that ‘intruder’ attack to bring you to your senses. I hope you’ll forgive me as I’ve so often forgiven you.”

When he’d finished explaining precisely how he’d disguised himself and faked the attack, Irina appeared too stunned to speak. Her face had gone whiter than he’d ever seen it. Without a word she turned her back to him and opened the drawer of her nightstand.

When Daversa had finished conferring with the coroner in the bedroom, he rejoined Irina downstairs. She remained in the same trancelike state of immobility, which might easily have been mistaken for the calmest serenity, as when he’d questioned her. He wasn’t sure it would do any good to pursue his inquiries before morning; nevertheless, he asked her if she was still certain it was the same man.

Irina turned her gaze from the lacquered cabinet where she’d hidden the gun. She nodded. For a moment Daversa almost thought he detected the wisp of a smile on her lips, but then it was gone.

“Oh yes, Lieutenant. Don’t ask me how I can be so certain, but I am. I would stake my life on it. The same man who tried to kill me was in that bedroom.”

© 1994 by Kate Wilhelm

Kate Wilhelm is an author who crosses effortlessly from genre to genre, hut as the Washington Post put it, “A taste for horror or science fiction or fantasy or contemporary fiction is not necessary to appreciate Kate Wilhelm. Her work transcends genre.” Recently Ms. Wilhelm has been devoting much of her time to crime fiction. In this novella-length work she demonstrates her ability to weave a tale complex not only in plot but in psychology...

The tangle of blackberries looked impenetrable, canes as thick as a man’s arm, arching branches fifteen, twenty feet long. Jordan Langford stopped to wipe his face, cursed the leather glove, took it off, and wiped again. He motioned to Will Magnusson to move ahead a few more yards with the tractor. The sickle bar, lowered almost to the ground, cut through the tangled mass very slowly because no one knew if boulders lurked, hidden beneath the greenery, and a boulder would tear up the blade.

He tugged a long, many-branched cane up from the bank of the creek. They couldn’t let the canes fall into the water, dam it, cause a flood, wash out the newly planted grapes on the other side of the creek.

It started to rain. For a moment Jordan stopped with his face lifted, mouthing curses; then he ducked his head and weaved his way through brambles to the tractor. “What do you think?”

Will shrugged. “Not much of a rain yet. How about if we just finish the stretch to the bridge?”

The bridge was two hundred feet away, a little wooden span level with the gravel road that bordered the acreage. Last summer Jordan had uncovered it, but the brambles had reclaimed this side, making it appear that the bridge led only to the thicket to vanish there. He grinned at Will, and they went back to work.

Little Agate Creek was three feet deep and four feet wide, with steep banks, and as Will liked to say, she was a good runner; she had cut a seven- or eight-foot gorge in her race down the mountain.

After a while, the two men changed places. Then Will was signaling with both hands, and Jordan stopped, a few yards short of the bridge. On the gravel road on the south side Ellen Blair grinned and waved from her Mazda. Her short curly hair was frizzy from the damp; she looked like a kid joyriding in a hot car.

Will motioned for him to come. Jordan raised the sickle bar, backed up to more level ground, and turned off the key. Will was at the top of the bank; Ellen, under a bright red and white umbrella, had left her car and was coming toward them.

“Look,” Will said, pointing, when Jordan drew near.

Where they had cut the brambles on the bank, the dirt had been loosened enough to uproot branches. In the newly exposed dirt Jordan saw a flash of gold being washed by the rain, and then he saw that the gold was on a bone, a finger bone. He leaned over and picked it up, a finger bone with a ring on it.

“What is it?” Ellen called from the bridge.

He held it up for her to see, and he thought for a second that she was going to faint. The color washed from her face; she swayed and backed up a step, another.

“There’s more,” Will said. “Leg, ribs...”

Ellen ran back to her car, and Jordan yelled after her, “Go to the trailer and call the sheriff.”

He looked again at the finger bone, gray with encrusted mud, pitted, a man’s finger. The ring was heavy, solid gold maybe, it was fashioned into a coiled snake, its head up and back in striking position, with emerald eyes and a red tongue.