Donna Andrews - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 130, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 793 & 794, September/October 2007

And then I catch the last train home, to find Emma waiting, anxious.

“You’re so late!”

“I went for a drink. Sorry.”

“You could have called.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m fine,” I say. “How was your day?”

“Same old, same old,” she tells me.

The papers make great play of the irony: The murder of the London head of a global security outfit captured on his firm’s CCTV. There are shots of me trailing him halfway up the river. Even I recognise myself in the blown-up footage. But at the trial I don’t mention Maurice’s subterfuge about the system being shut down because — as both he and Emma point out — last thing I need is another drowned body surfacing. Even a twenty-year-old murder would muddy the waters. One life sentence is enough.

They send me a photo from the wedding. This takes place the week after our divorce comes through. Maurice looks fit and spruce, but then he has no further need to play down-at-heel, and the extra £15K for stepping into the boss’s shoes can’t hurt. He’s maintained his predecessor’s habit of holding brunch meetings at the Victoria, I gather. Its conference room is ideal. I sometimes think about Emma killing three hours in the cafe there, and wonder if she drank as much coffee as I did while waiting for suspicion to harden.

In the photo, she looks beautiful.

© 2007 Bill Crider

The idea of the “group blog” seems to be catching on lately. Instead of one writer doing all the posts, writers band together to share the load. A fine example, and one that should be of particular interest to readers of this magazine, is Criminal Brief (www.criminalbrief.com/), which is a blog devoted to discussion of the writing and marketing of short stories. Saturdays are devoted to a “Mystery Masterclass” with “distinguished guest contributors,” the first of whom was Ed Hoch. It would be hard to find anyone who knows more about the short story than Ed. Regular contributors are James Lincoln Warren (on Monday), Melodie Johnson Howe (Tuesday), Robert Lopresti (Wednesday), Deborah Elliott-Upton (Thursday), Steven Stein-bock (Friday), and Leigh Lundin (Sunday).

Another entertaining group blog is Poe’s Deadly Daughters (poesdeadlydaughters.blogspot.com/), property of Julia Buckley, Sandra Parshall, Elizabeth Zelvin, Sharon Wildwind, and Lonnie Cruise. Sandra’s recent post on “book lust” really hit home with me. Lonnie often does interviews with other writers, and there’s plenty of discussion of writing and personal things. Sharon might reprint one of her reminiscences of Vietnam, or Julia will talk about a favorite poem. Guest bloggers show up occasionally, too. Reed Farrel Coleman put in an appearance just the other day.

Murderati (www.murderati.typepad.com/) has the largest group of the three. Mondays belong to Pari Noskin Taichert, and on Tuesday either Louise Ure or Ken Bruen takes over. Wednesday brings Robert Gregory Browne or J. D. Rhoades, whereas Thursday belongs to Simon Wood. J. T. Ellison has Friday, and Alexandra Sokoloff gets Saturday. Sunday Mike McLean has the floor. Guest bloggers Naomi Hirahara and Toni McGee Causey give the others an occasional break. As you can see, there’s bound to be lots of variety, and topics have included a review of the first season of Freaks and Geeks, a report on the Romantic Times conference, and a report on Malice Domestic, with photos.

Bill Crider’s own blog, Bill Crider’s Pop Culture Magazine, can be found at billcrider.blogspot.com.

© 2007 by Donna Andrews

Agatha Award-winner Donna Andrews is the author of two mystery series, one published by Berkley, featuring an artificial intelligence as the sleuth, and the other from St. Martin’s Press, featuring amateur sleuth Meg Langslow. The latest in that series is The Penguin Who Knew Too Much . “A Rat’s Tale” was inspired, says Ms. Andrews, bu the fact that she herself is a packrat.

I had a bad feeling when the doorbell rang. Of course, I never like hearing the doorbell. I’d known for a while that someone could file a complaint with social services or the health department at any time. As soon as they stepped through the door, the game would be up. The old man would be off to some home and I’d be out in the cold.

And I kind of like the old man. Maybe I should resent him for killing off the rest of my family, but that was a long time ago. And he’s mellowed since. It’s been ages since he put down any poison. Could be he’s realized I know better than to eat it, but I think these days he enjoys the company. He still mutters “Goddamned rats!” whenever he sees me, but there’s no venom in it anymore.

So when the doorbell rang, I scuttled over to the door and got there before he did. He has to follow the paths, and I can run along the top of the magazines, in the places where they don’t quite reach the ceiling or where I’ve gnawed tunnels through them.

By the time he reached the door, I was already perched in one of my observation points — a nice, comfortable nest I’d hollowed out in the old National Geographics that flanked the door, with a couple of convenient peepholes.

“Who’s there?” the old man said.

“It’s Ron.”

I flattened my ears at that — Ron, the old man’s nephew, worried me. So far he hadn’t tried to get the old man to move out or clean up, but I figure that was because he was afraid it would end up costing him money.

The old man opened the door.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“It’s freezing out here,” Ron said. “Can’t we talk inside?”

The old man stared at him for a few moments, then pushed the door partway closed, to give himself room to turn around, and began shuffling back down the path. Ron pushed the door open again and slipped in. He stood in the hall taking shallow breaths for a few seconds, the way he always did. Humans never really seemed to appreciate the rich, nuanced collection of odors the old man had created here in the house. Even the old man probably didn’t really appreciate it — he’d just stopped noticing.

I hoped Ron would puke, like last time, but he fought it back. He closed the door and followed the old man down the path.

I scrambled to follow. I had to go more slowly than usual. The old man couldn’t hear the rustling noises I made while crawling over and through all the newspapers and magazines, but Ron’s ears were keener. And despite my caution, he must have heard me.

“I still say you’ve got rats,” he was saying as I arrived at my observation post in the kitchen.

“No, I don’t,” the old man said. “And if I did, they’d be my rats, and none of your business.”

The old man sat down in his usual place — a little cave hollowed out between the stacks of Reader’s Digests and flattened cardboard boxes around the kitchen table.

Ron looked around, confirmed that there wasn’t anywhere else to sit — just as there hadn’t been the last dozen times he’d been here. He leaned against the kitchen counter, careful not to touch any of the junk precariously piled there.

“What do you want?” the old man asked.

“Doesn’t it ever occur to you that maybe it’s a good thing to have someone check on you every once in a while?” Ron said. “What if some of this junk fell on you? You could die before anyone found you.”

“I’d still die before you lifted a finger to help me. What do you want?”

“I need some money,” the nephew said.

“Tough luck.”

“I’ve got people after me!” Ron was sweating slightly, and the room still had its usual frigid winter chill. “If I can’t make my interest payments—”