Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 12/01/10 Read online

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  Wednesday, December 1, 2010

  Winter’s Antidote

  LINDA LANDRIGAN, EDITOR

  What better way to pass the chill nights of winter than with an issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, full of inflamed passions and hot-blooded murder. Passion in a variety of forms And...

  The Lineup

  RUSSELL ATWOOD is the author of the mystery novels East of A and Losers Live Longer. Booked & Printed columnist ROBERT C. HAHN reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly, New York Post, among other places. WAYNE J. GARDINER is a former advertising executive. He author of the novel The Man on the...

  MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH

  Left at the Loading Dock We will give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the above photograph. The story will...

  THE STORY THAT WON

  J. F. PEIRCE

  I stopped my car and looked at a gate with no fence. Beyond the gate was brush land, the sea, and cloud-rimmed mountains. A voice behind me said, “The gate’s a sculpture titled The Gate...

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  Winter’s Antidote

  LINDA LANDRIGAN, EDITOR

  What better way to pass the chill nights of winter than with an issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, full of inflamed passions and hot-blooded murder.

  Passion in a variety of forms courses through these stories—academic, jealous, moral, professional, voyeuristic. From the cloistered cells of a Southwestern monastery to an air-conditioned criminal court room, from a hospital in Bath, England, to a bar in Kansas City, from the streets of San Francisco to the cafés of Paris, hot-tempered crime is everywhere.

  And for those whose passion is classic mysteries, a special treat this month. Melville Davisson Post is a well-remembered mystery writer of the turn of the twentieth century, but “A Critique of Monsieur Poe” is his charming, little-known homage to one of the mystery genre’s founding figures.

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  The Lineup

  RUSSELL ATWOOD is the author of the mystery novels East of A and Losers Live Longer.

  Booked & Printed columnist ROBERT C. HAHN reviews mysteries for Publishers Weekly, New York Post, among other places.

  WAYNE J. GARDINER is a former advertising executive. He author of the novel The Man on the Left.

  DAVID HAGERTY has worked as a newspaper crime reporter and as a teacher in a California county jail. His first story for AHMM, “The Lead Out,” was published in January/February 2010. He is working on a political murder mystery.

  MICHAEL Z. LEWIN is a two-time Edgar nominee in the short story category. His previous AHMM story was “Death Row” (March 2008). His story collection The Reluctant Detective was published by Crippen & Landru in 2001.

  B. K. STEVENS’s story “Adjuncts Anonymous” (June 2009) was shortlisted for a Derringer award. She is an English professor in Virginia.

  MARIANNE WILSKI STRONG sets many of her stories in Pennsylvania where she grew up or in Ancient Greece whose literature she taught for many years.

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  MYSTERIOUS PHOTOGRAPH

  © 2010, by Mark Russell

  Left at the Loading Dock

  We will give a prize of $25 to the person who invents the best mystery story (in 250 words or less, and be sure to include a crime) based on the above photograph. The story will be printed in a future issue. Reply to AHMM, Dell Magazines, 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, New York 10007-2352. Please label your entry “December Contest,” and be sure your name and address are written on the story you submit. If you would like your story returned, please include an SASE.

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  THE STORY THAT WON

  J. F. PEIRCE

  The June Mysterious Photograph contest was won by J. F. Peirce of Bryan, Texas. Honorable mentions go to Andrew W. Patterson of London, Ontario, Canada; Marion Duer of Longford, Kansas; Alan Krasner of East Lyme, Connecticut; M. Donovan Arnold of Minneapolis, Minnesota; Sharon Smith of Fairview, North Carolina; John Rippetoe of Austin, Texas; Dennis W. Allen of Garland, Texas; Elaine Westheimer of San Diego, California; and Debra Y. Davis of Johnstown, Ohio.

  Photo by Myrna J. Yancey

  I stopped my car and looked at a gate with no fence. Beyond the gate was brush land, the sea, and cloud-rimmed mountains.

  A voice behind me said, “The gate’s a sculpture titled The Gate of Dreams. Go through the gate, close your eyes, and dream what you’d like to have.”

  I got out of my car, opened the gate, walked through, closed my eyes, dreamt of having a better car. And I heard my car drive away.

  Another car approached and stopped. The driver looked at the gate without a fence. I said, “Howdy. That’s my latest sculpture, The Gate of Dreams. Go through, close your eyes, and dream what you’d like to have.”

  He did. When he opened his eyes, he looked at my gun.

  “Your watch and wallet, please,” I said.

  Once I had them, I drove off in his shiny, new Lincoln.

  Moments later I saw the car I’d stolen, which had been stolen from me, on the roadside, the driver thumbing a ride.

  I stopped.

  He opened the door, and stared at my gun.

  “Your watch and wallet, please.”

  Once I had them, I drove off.

  Copyright © 2010 J. F. Peirce

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  INTERPRETATION OF MURDER

  B. K. STEVENS

  Spotting Sandra Blakemore didn’t take long. Like me, she wore a simple, dark dress—high neckline, long sleeves, no distracting prints or stripes, no jewelry, no buttons. She was a tall,...

  LOVE AND DEATH

  MICHAEL Z. LEWIN

  Spurred by boredom, Salvatore Lunghi rolled the chair from behind the office desk to a place by the office window. He watched the traffic on Bath’s Walcot Street below. The cars were hardly moving. People on the pavement couldn’t be seen beneath their umbrellas which were black, black...

  A PHOTO’S WORTH

  DAVID HAGERTY

  As usual, I get my first coffee at Cuppa Joe on Powell Street. It’s actually not my type of place, all froufrou milkshakes masquerading as coffee. Mostly, it serves moms with baby strollers on...

  MY HEART’S ABHORRENCE

  MARIANNE WILSKI STRONG

  G-r-r-r—there go, my heart’s abhorrence! Water your damned flower-pots, do! Robert Browning, “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister” The monks, sandals scraping over the stone...

  BOOKED & PRINTED

  ROBERT C. HAHN

  Call them screwball mysteries, those books that feature unconventional female leads, hot male suitors, slapstick humor, and yes, the occasional murder. It’s a subgenre that was popularized by ...

  LUCILLE

  WAYNE J. GARDINER

  The woman who has been looking at the three-by-five photo tucks it away in a compartment of her big Coach bag and says, “So that’s Charlie, huh?” “That’s him,” Walter says. “Nice-looking man,” she says. Walter swivels his wrist in a gesture that...

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  INTERPRETATION OF MURDER

  B. K. STEVENS


  Illustration by Hank Blaustein

  Spotting Sandra Blakemore didn’t take long. Like me, she wore a simple, dark dress—high neckline, long sleeves, no distracting prints or stripes, no jewelry, no buttons. She was a tall, solidly built woman in her mid fifties; her hair, like mine, was pulled back tightly. The only extravagant thing about her appearance was her eyebrows, plucked and penciled into sharp, dark peaks.

  I walked over to her. “Ms. Blakemore?” I said. “I’m Jane Ciardi.”

  She looked me over quickly—with approval, I thought—and shook my hand. “Thanks for helping at such short notice, Jane,” she said. “Well, what a mess. Not that I blame Christine. If your husband has a heart attack, you wait in the hospital with him, no question. Still, it’s hard to bring someone new in now—after pre-trial hearings, and jury selection, and most of the prosecutor’s witnesses. And this is your first time interpreting in court?”

  “In criminal court, yes,” I said. “I’ve interpreted in family court and small claims. But nothing like this.”

  “‘Nothing like this,’ indeed.” One of the eyebrows arched into a still steeper inverted V. “Thank goodness things like this don’t happen often. It casts the whole community in such a negative light. And after all the controversy—well.” She arched the eyebrow again, then switched to a brisker, more businesslike tone. “I thought I’d handle both voicing and signing when there’s a deaf witness, leave the signing when there’s a hearing witness to you. That way, you won’t have to voice. All right?”

  “Fine,” I said gratefully. Like most sign language interpreters, I find signing for hearing people easier than voicing for deaf people, especially if I haven’t gotten to know the deaf people involved, haven’t gotten used to their inevitably more or less distinctive styles of signing. “And we’ll stand by the defendant’s table?”

  “I will,” she said. “You’ll be right by the witness stand. Since there are so many deaf spectators, the judge wants you where everyone can see you. You realize that we’ll be videotaped? If the defendant appeals, if he wants to claim the jury was prejudiced by incompetent signing, a videotape will be crucial. You know about the case, of course?”

  “Only what I’ve read in the newspaper,” I said. There had been plenty to read. When a distinguished educator from California was hired as principal of the Cleveland School for the Deaf, both students and faculty protested that a hearing person shouldn’t be chosen, that only a deaf administrator could do the job; when student demonstrations got vigorous, almost violent, local newspapers and television stations covered them eagerly. And when James Douglass was found dead in his office barely two months after starting his job, when his deaf assistant principal was charged with crushing his skull, the coverage turned constant, and gleeful.

  “Such a shame,” Sandra said. Her eyes looked angry, more than sad. “I met James Douglass once, soon after he came to town, when he spoke at the City Club. Such an articulate, dynamic speaker, and he signed just beautifully. A handsome man, too—distinguished but still youthful. And very bright, very dedicated. What do these people want, anyway? Where would they be if no hearing people took an interest in them, if none of us wanted to serve them? And is it right to accept our services and then tell us we can go only so high and no higher? Is it reasonable to tell someone like James Douglass that he can’t aspire to a top position?”

  “It’s a difficult issue,” I said, troubled by her reference to “these people.” She doesn’t mean deaf people, I told myself. She just means the most extreme protestors.

  Sandra gave me a sharp look. “‘Difficult,’” she repeated. “That’s a safe word. To me, it doesn’t seem all that ‘difficult.’ There’s right and there’s wrong, there’s fair and there’s unfair, and in this case it’s not ‘difficult’ to tell them apart. And for James Douglass to be murdered because his ambitions don’t suit a certain segment—that’s horribly wrong. Or is that ‘a difficult issue’ too?”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Not if that’s what happened. But didn’t some evidence point to burglary?”

  “Burglary!” The eyebrows shot up scornfully. “Naturally some evidence pointed to burglary. The murderer made sure of that. If I murdered someone, my first thought would be to fake a burglary. Break a window, steal some things, dump them in the Cuyahoga River—of course that’s what the murderer did. It’s what anyone would do. I’m glad the police didn’t fall for it.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Still, shouldn’t we keep an open mind and—” “Let the jury keep an open mind,” Sandra cut in. “That’s not my job. And it’s not your job to second-guess the police. Look, I realize all this is new to you. But in a courtroom, everyone has one specific job, and the system works best if everyone sticks to that one job. The prosecutor shouldn’t worry about whether the defendant’s really innocent; the defense attorney shouldn’t worry about whether the defendant’s really guilty. And you shouldn’t try to be the judge or the jury. Just do your one job.” She smoothed her hair into place, needlessly. “They’ll start soon. Mrs. Douglass is the first witness, so you’re up right away—trial by fire, as they say.” She smiled, barely, as if to say she knew it wasn’t funny but wanted to make up for speaking too harshly. “I’ll sit in the front row. If you run into trouble, let me know.”

  I took my place by the witness stand and watched people file in. A group of six came in together, signing busily. Friends of the defendant, I thought, possibly teachers from the school. The prosecutor, a trim woman with a sympathetic face, came in with her team, then the defense attorney. He looks too young, I thought, and too rumpled, and much too aggressive. A bailiff brought out the defendant—a tall, gaunt man with unruly red hair he really should have trimmed for the trial, his face so proud and defiant that he seemed to be daring the jury to find him guilty. For a moment, I tried to imagine what he might be feeling, how the ordeal of being on trial for murder must be intensified for a deaf person. To be dependent on interpreters to know what people are saying about you, to be forced to have your own words transmitted to the judge and the jury by others, to be cut off from the small but perhaps significant sounds of the courtroom—a rustling of papers, a gasp of surprise, a sharp tap of the gavel. No matter how much bravado the defendant might be showing, he had to feel isolated, vulnerable, afraid.

  Another bailiff called out, everyone stood, and the judge entered as I signed the formulaic opening phrases I’d practiced in the shower this morning. It’s ridiculous to be nervous, I told myself. You won’t have to do anything you haven’t done a thousand times before. It doesn’t matter where you are, or how important this is, or how many people are watching you. So calm down.

  Victoria Douglass was called to the stand, and almost everyone made a point of not staring at her. She would not enjoy being stared at; you could tell that immediately. She was in her forties, plump but not uncomfortably so, her softly arranged brown hair showing unashamed traces of gray. Her navy blue suit seemed just right—sober, but not as melodramatic as widow’s black. She no longer wore wedding or engagement rings, but she had a large sapphire circled by tiny diamonds on her right hand, with matching earrings. A teacher’s salary wouldn’t pay for those, I thought, or even a principal’s. She probably has money of her own. She kept her hands folded in her lap—not tightly, but so primly that her whole posture seemed slightly stiff. A schoolgirl pose, one might call it, but only if one went to a certain type of school.

  Gently, the prosecutor eased her through preliminary questions. Her name was Victoria Wharton Douglass. She resided in California—she’d moved back after her husband’s death, and had returned this week for the trial. She had worked at an art gallery years ago, but was not currently employed; she volunteered at an adult literacy center. She and James Douglass had been married for twenty-three years. They had no children. They had moved to Cleveland last August, so he could begin his new position. Yes, she and her husband had been troubled by the protests, but he’d wanted to come nonetheless—he had felt it
was the right thing to do, and she had agreed.

  Signing for her felt effortless. Each word she spoke was distinct, her tone unfailingly even and clear. Her hands stayed utterly still in her lap.

  The prosecutor sighed, bowing her head almost imperceptibly, lifting her hands in a gesture of helpless compassion. When she looked up, her eyes brimmed with resolve. “We come now to Thursday, the fifteenth of October. Please tell us what happened.”

  Victoria Douglass nodded quickly. She loosened her hands, flexing her fingers slightly, and folded them again. “At about three thirty,” she said, “I went to see my husband at his office. The committee planning the Halloween party was meeting at four, and I’d baked cookies for them. It was a new recipe. I was pleased with how the cookies turned out, so I brought my husband some. We chatted. Then Miss Hanson walked in—”

  “You mean Rita Hanson,” the prosecutor cut in, “his administrative assistant?”

  “That’s correct,” Victoria Douglass said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. Miss Hanson and my husband had a brief conversation in sign. Then he said he was sorry, but she’d reminded him about a report he needed to send out in the morning. He said he’d have to work through dinner and might not be home until late.” She paused. “I told him I understood. Then Dr. Frank Bixby, the assistant principal, entered the office.”

  “Did you know Dr. Bixby well?” the prosecutor asked.

  “Not well, no,” Victoria Douglass said. “I’d seen him just two or three times, at school functions.”

  “At the dinner to welcome you and your husband to the school?” the prosecutor asked. “At the ceremony when your husband was installed as principal?”

  “No,” Victoria Douglass said. “Dr. Bixby didn’t attend those events.”

  The prosecutor nodded, as if just remembering. “That’s right. As other witnesses have testified, Dr. Bixby stayed away from both events in protest. During the installation, in fact, Dr. Bixby joined in a student demonstration, did he not?”