Isaac Asimov - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 77, No. 7. Whole No. 454, June 17, 1981

Abruptly again he switched the subject back to horses. “You still going to use Billy Winston Saturday?”

“Sure, if it’s just a bump on the head. We’ll have to get out a rush order for a substitute if it’s more than that.”

“The show must go on, huh?”

“For cryin’ out loud, McLane, what’re you after? Yeah, the race goes. Whit’ll still run his horse, Lanier’ll run his, and we’ll see what’s what. But if you think it means I’m not sorry or broken up that Ginger’s dead, you’re crazy. Of all people, I wouldn’t have wanted—”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. By the way, let me see your gun.”

“What the—” At first I wondered what he was driving at now, but then I realized that of course he had to ask. “Just a minute.”

I rolled to the little deal table and pulled it out of the drawer. “Here. It hasn’t been cleaned in a week. And it hasn’t been fired.” He hefted it. “Where’d you get this little baby? Thought you had a .38. This thing—” He looked at my two-and-a-half-inch-barrel special and sniffed. “Takin’ up shootin’ mice?”

“Aw, McLane. You know how it is. Everybody around here knows I have a license to carry a gun. Everybody knows I’m an ex-cop. Everybody knows I can shoot. Just their knowing that is as good as having a cannon. Or at least I thought it was, before—”

“Nice little gun, though,” he said. “Where’s your other one? Don’t tell me you found it too heavy to hold, with those big strong arms of yours.”

“What other—”

“The .38 with the five-inch barrel you used to have.”

“Hell, Lieutenant, I don’t know. I guess I’ve got it packed in a trunk somewhere — you know, for old times’ sake. I had it on the force. But a hip holster in a wheelchair isn’t the easiest — that’s why I changed to the smaller gun.”

He smiled, but it was a smile that didn’t quite reach his face.

“Sure. But get it for me, will you? You know how it is,” he added, with just a hint of apology, “we have to touch all the bases. Some goon might’ve lifted it from you.”

“No chance. But let me see. Oh, yeah. Maybe over here.” I wheeled myself to the closet and leaned over to plow through the steamer trunk on the floor. I tossed junk every which way, digging down to the bottom for it. “No luck here. Oh. I wonder if I could’ve stuck it in that suitcase up on top.”

I reached around to the peg on the door for my cane, but it wasn’t there. I can get around a little with the help of that cane, but I can’t lift myself without it. Where the devil was it? Oh, my God...

“Missing something, Paul?” McLane asked softly.

Panic started to hit me, and a sickening feeling that McLane was figuring it out. I didn’t even want to turn around. I could hear the certainty growing; I didn’t want to see it, too.

“I found the cane in Dunbar’s barn, Wyman. Found the gun, too, shoved down in a feed bin. Haven’t had time yet to run a check on it, but I guess we know what it’ll show. She was killed with a .38. I suppose you meant to go back for it later. No purse, but I expect you’ll fill us in about that. — You know, it threw me a minute ago when Happ told me the girl was shot from above. I figured you couldn’t possibly have done it. She was a tall girl, and you in a wheelchair or out of it couldn’t have gotten that angle on her. Until I thought of the cane. If you’d tripped her with it, and she was down —”

“Oh, shut up.” I wheeled slowly around, biting my lip and trying to keep back the tears while I fought for a little dignity. It was almost a relief making my confession, except that I couldn’t undo the part where beautiful Ginger Dunbar was dead.

I expected McLane to be disgusted with “a cop gone wrong,” or at least angry, or even proud of himself that he’d solved it so quickly. Instead, he looked sorry.

“Hard to figure you, Paul. I thought you were sweet on her.”

“ I LOVED HER! McLane, believe me, I didn’t want to kill her! I lost my head. She came in while I was giving a little something to Ginger Peachy—”

“You were hopping up her horse?”

“No, slowing her down. Just a little. And the race wasn’t until Saturday, so’s I could tell by the times how much difference there’d be against Little Bit, and—”

He finished for me. “And make the safest bet, is that it?”

It sounded so cut-and-dried.

“Yeah, yeah. That’s it. No permanent damage, you see—”

“Except for Ginger. She got a little ‘permanent damage’ done her, wouldn’t you say?”

“McLane, she walked in and grabbed for me and grabbed for the horse. I just tripped her with the cane, and I guess it was old habit, I whipped out the gun—”

“And shot her point-blank while she was lying flat on her face? Some nice ‘old habit’ you picked up.”

“I mean, I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking of her as her, you see, not as Ginger, just as somebody — somebody—”

“Getting in your way. Boy, you must have wanted that safe bet pretty bad.”

“See, I was into some of the guys kind of heavy. Sal Verdi, for one. And Lanier — all I needed was one sure thing, and it looked so easy.”

McLane sighed. “You sure lost something somewhere along the line, didn’t you?”

McLane had his own gun out now, trained on me as he dialed for the squad.

“You know, your dumping her out there at the rail was kinda smart. If I hadn’t realized how strong you’d made your upper body it might not have occurred to me that a guy in a wheelchair could lift and haul her that far. You did a pretty good job messing up the ruts in the damp ground, too, with all that folderol of ‘looking for the bullet.’ I suppose you did drop a spent bullet there?” I nodded.

“Yeah. — Hello, Happ. Send the boys. What? Yeah, we got him. A track rat? I guess you could call him that. Just a fool who thought he could set up a sure thing.”

He hung up and brought out the cuffs.

“Say, clear up a point for me, Wyman. There should have been blood around where you killed her. How’d you get rid of it?”

“It was on the hay. I— I — fed it to the goat.”

“My God.” He shook his head. “Too bad for you y’missed the cane.”

I’m glad I didn’t have to see Whit Dunbar when we left.

I guess McLane had it right when he told the sergeant he’d nabbed a fool who’d thought he could set up a sure thing.

© 1981 by Betty Jochmans

Betty Jochmans’ first story, “The Glass Slipper Murder,” appeared in our issue of February 11, 1980. Her second story, as usually happens with second stories, is altogether different — different in type, tone, and theme ...

For five consecutive summers they had enjoyed wonderful trips to foreign countries. But Thalia had remained an “amateur traveler.” It was Harold to whom traveling meant so much...

Driving into Oaxaca about 5:30, I had no idea that in a few hours I would see my dead wife, peering out of a black-and-white Mexican taxi as it careened down Hidalgo Street. But on my 5:30 arrival I had other thoughts about Thalia — the normal thoughts of a bereaved widower.

I couldn’t help but think what Thalia’s reaction would have been to the afternoon crowds along that narrow, one-way street. Tiny, aggressive cars were honking and maneuvering into every gap, and ancient, dilapidated buses spewed thick exhaust. Thalia would have grabbed for a tissue and gagged. Then she would have said something like, “Couldn’t they have looked ahead a little and realized that some day, with big cars and all, they’d need more room?” Poor dear Thalia, to whom history and logic meant nothing.