Authors often have favorites among their stories, and this tightly woven crime caper is one that particularly pleased its creator, Clark Howard. Mr. Howard is a five-time winner of EQMM�s Readers Award, a top true crime writer, and an Edgar Allan Poe Award winning short story writer. Though the setting for the tale is a place famous in connection with our current President, Mr. Bush is not one of the story�s characters.

Frank Raine wasn�t supposed to drink alcoholic beverages. He had been out on parole from the Texas penitentiary up in Huntsville for just a week, and he knew full well that the Tanqueray and tonic in front of him on the bar could put him back in the place they called The Walls for another two, maybe three years. He wasn�t supposed to associate with known felons, either, but he was about to break that rule, too, waiting as he was in a small Houston bar to meet his old cellmate, Jesus Ortega. Because the Spanish pronunciation of Ortega�s given name was Hay-soose, everyone called him �Soose.� Raine had not seen him since Soose made parole some eight months earlier, but when Frank walked out of the joint a week ago, a message from a gate trusty had been passed to him, a phone number on a scrap of paper, and when he called it a couple of days later, Soose answered. Now, as Frank Raine took his first tangy sip of the T-and-T, Soose walked in the door and Frank rose to greet him. The two men embraced and exchanged amigos. Soose was carrying about thirty extra pounds, and Frank patted the Latino�s belly. �Who�s the father, man?�

�Very funny,� Soose replied, unofifended. �It�s hard not to put on weight living with my mother, man; she never cooks small. Come on, let�s get a booth in the back.� Soose bobbed his chin at the bartender, who was also Hispanic. �Double Jack Daniels, carnal,� he said. Carnal meant street brother; all Hispanic males understood it.

The two men sat in a back booth and made small talk until Soose�s drink had been set in front of him. Then Soose got down to business.

�Man, you getting out last week was like the answer to a prayer. How�d you like to split a cool two million four ways?�

�What kind of cool two million?� Raine asked.

�Dollars, baby,� Soose replied with a dazzling smile. �Greenbacks. Currency. And all unmarked.�

�If you�re talking an armored truck or something like that, I�m not interested,� Raine told him. �I�m waiting for Stella to get out next week so�s we can get back together. I�m not looking for anything high-risk right now��

�It ain�t high-risk, Frankie,� his friend assured him. �That�s the beauty of it. The cash ain�t even gonna be in a vault; it�s gonna be in a footlocker, just like one of those you buy at Wal-Mart. Only this one is painted gold. There�ll be maybe two, three, four security guards or local redneck cops looking after it. You, me, and one other guy can take �em down with no sweat.� Soose smiled again: two rows of the kind of teeth you see in toothpaste ads. �Interested now, amigo?�

�Maybe,� said Raine. �Let�s hear the rest of it.�

Soose leaned forward on the table, his dark face becoming grave. �How much you know about Texas, man?�

Raine shrugged. �Good cops. Lousy prisons.�

�No, I mean about Texas history.�

�Not much. My people stole it from your people.�

�Yeah, but besides that.� Soose took a sip of his Jack Daniels. �Let me give you a little history lesson. After the gringos stole it from the Mexican people, Texas was annexed as a state in eighteen forty-five. For a long time, it didn�t have no real borders; it jus� went on forever. Because of its size, some smart gringos decided to put in the state�s charter that it could be divided into five smaller states if the people living here voted for it.�

Raine frowned. �Five different states?�

�Yeah. Think about it. Today it would mean ten U. S. Senators instead of two.�

�Whoa,� Raine said quietly, pursing his lips in a silent whistle.

�Whoa is right,� Soose agreed. �Anyway, when the Civil War came along, Texas went with the Confederacy, so it was no longer part of the United States and its original charter was no good no more. Then, after the war ended, Texas was readmitted to the Union in 1870 under a new state charter. This one left out the right of Texas to divide itself up. But there�s a lot of feeling around that with a vote of the people, it could still be done. Not into five states, but into two: North Texas and South Texas. Just like North and South Carolina, North and South Dakota.�

�What�s all this got to do with a two-million-dollar score?� Raine asked.

�I�m getting to that,� Soose told him. �You ever hear of an oil burg named Midland?�

Raine frowned. �Sounds familiar, but I�m not sure why.�

�It�s over in West Texas, in the middle of a huge wasteland that just happens to have an ocean of oil under it. �Member about twelve, fifteen years ago, a little girl fell in a well? Baby Jessica...�

�Yeah, I remember that. It was front-page stuff for two or three days. They got her out, right?�

�Yeah. Everybody that could read knew about it. Midland is famous for it. That and the fact that President Bush started in the oil business there. He calls it his hometown, says he wants to be buried there.�

�You�re not working up to something that involves the President and Secret Service, are you?� Raine asked prudently. �Because if you are��

�No, man, you think I�m crazy?� Soose demurred. �Jus� listen, okay? There�s this big private building in Midland called the New Petroleum Club. All the big-shot oilmen are members. They hold private parties there, business meetings, political pow-wows, that kind of stuff. A week from now there�s gonna be a big fundraising luncheon there to start piling up money to run a slate of independent candidates in the next state election who will support a movement to divide Texas into two states, north and south. They�re gonna call themselves the Partition Party. A hundred of the wealthiest men in the state are behind it. I�m talking oilmen from central Texas, cattlemen from the Panhandle, telecommunications people from Houston, natural-gas pipeliners from El Paso, millionaire cotton farmers from the Rio Grande valley, shipping big shots from Galveston, you name it. There�s money from all over Texas behind this idea. A hundred of the wealthiest men in the state are gonna meet in Midland for this fundraising luncheon and kick in twenty thousand bucks apiece to put the first two million into this new political party�s campaign chest.�

�Yeah, but they won�t bring cash,� Raine said, �they�ll bring checks��

�Wrong. They will bring cash. This is all under-the-table money. These guys don�t want any record of their donations. This is how they get around the federal limit on political donations. You�ve heard politicians talking about �soft� money? Well, this is what they call quiet money.�

Raine was staring almost in disbelief at his friend. �All one hundred of these guys are bringing twenty grand to this luncheon � in cash?�

�You got it. Fresh currency, mixed bills, from different banks all over the state, unmarked, and��

�Untraceable,� Raine finished the sentence for him.

�Right. And it all gets dropped into that Wal-Mart footlocker that�s painted gold and sitting in front of the head table. When everybody�s dropped their money in, those hick cops I tol� you about will put it in the back of a station wagon to drive it to a local bank to be put in a vault. But between the club and the bank��

�It�s exposed,� Frank Raine said quietly. He drummed his fingertips silently on the table. Slowly his expression morphed into the set, steady look of a man who had just established for himself an irrepressible goal. �How�d you hit on this?� he asked.

�I worked in the oil fields over in Midland while I was on parole. Me and this gringo kid named Lee Watts worked for an old-timer named J. D. Pike. The guy�s an old wildcatter, been rich three or four times, married three or four times, gone broke three or four times. Right now he�s supposed to have enough money to be on the list of oilmen invited to the luncheon, but fact is he�s almost flat busted. He�s got some oil leases over in Louisiana that he�s sure are gonna hit, but he needs a stake. He could go out and borrow the dough, but then he�d have to share the profits if he hit a gusher. So he asked Lee if he knew anybody who might be interested in a quick and easy score for big bucks. Lee came to me with it.�

�And now you�re coming to me,� Raine said. �Why?�

Soose looked chagrined. �Come on, Frank. I�m small time compared to you. I can go along on a score like this, but I can�t plan it. I can�t pull it all together. It needs a jefe.� Soose pronounced the last word �hef-fey.� It meant chief.

�Who all�s in on it?� Raine asked.

�Just the guys I tol� you about: old man Pike, Lee Watts, an� me.�

�What kind of split you figuring on?�

�I already talked that over with the others, without mentioning your name, just your reputation. We agreed to give you forty percent, eight hundred grand, to engineer the whole job. The rest of us would split a million-two even: four hundred grand each.�

�What about front money? Guns, getaway car, other expenses?�

�Old man Pike said he still has a little cash left for that.�

Raine sat back and chewed on a piece of hard, dead skin next to one of his thumbnails. He was an ordinary-looking man, some good features, some poor, not the kind that many women looked at twice, but those who did were serious about it. He was graying at the temples and had a not unattractive scar above his right eyebrow where he�d been hit with a bottle once. It was his eyes that told the most about him: They said don�t lie to me and I won�t lie to you. It was best to believe them.

�When is this big luncheon planned for?� he asked Soose.

�A week from Wednesday.�

Today was Tuesday, Raine thought. That gave them seven days before the day of the job. Stella would be getting out on Thursday; that would give Raine enough time to work on her, to give her the �one last job� routine. And it would give him time to check out the others on the job: an old man, a kid from the oil fields � it might be too thin from a personnel aspect.

�What about this guy who brought it to you?�

�Lee? He�s okay. Texas poor, you know, but not trash. Good kid. Got a steady girl but they ain�t married yet. Wants to buy a motorcycle shop with his end of the take.�

�And the old man?�

�A little shaky,� Soose admitted, �but tough. You prob�ly wouldn�t want him in on the actual heist, just before and after.�

�Can you set up a meet for Saturday?�

�Sure, perfect time. Everybody comes to Midland on Saturdays; nobody�ll notice us.�

�Not in Midland. The old man must be known there; the kid too, maybe even you. Make it someplace else.�

Soose thought a moment, then said, �We could meet in Odessa, about twenty-five miles away. Just south of town there�s a public park called Comanche Trails. There�s picnic tables around. I could pick up some tostados and salsa and beer; we could eat while we talk.�

�Good. Make it this Saturday, three o�clock. Listen, I need a car.�

�You can take mine, carnal. It�s a sweet little ninety-one Chrysler with leather, runs like a dream. I�ll use my mother�s car and she can use my sister�s car. My sister�s expecting; she�s eight months along and don�t drive much anyhow.� Soose�s expression firmed. �So, we�re set for Saturday, camarada?�

�Yeah,� Raine nodded. �We�re set for Saturday. In Odessa.�

John Harvey has close to a hundred books to his credit, but his first �stand-alone� novel, In a True Light, appeared only last year. He began his career writing series paperbacks, for both teenagers and adults, and later launched a hardcover mystery series featuring a character, Resnick, who has come to be celebrated in crime fiction. A poet and dramatist as well as a crime writer, Mr. Harvey is frequently cited by critics for the beauty of his prose.

Before Jack Kiley had moved to the comparatively rarefied splendours of Highbury Fields (that courtesy of Kate, and another story which might be told), home had been a second-floor flat in the dodgy hinterland between the Archway and the arse-end of Tufnell Park. Upper Holloway, according to the London A-Z. A bristle of indistinguishable streets that clung, like fleas, to the rabid backbone of the Holloway Road: four lanes of traffic which, here and there, squeezed inexplicably down to two, fostering a trail of fumes which spread unusually high levels of eczema, asthma, and related diseases over the surrounding area, achieving pollution levels three times above those recommended as safe by the EEC.

Undaunted, Kiley would, from time to time, stroll some half a mile along the pavements of this great highway, past the innumerable Greek Cypriot and Kurdish convenience stores and the fading splendour of the five-screen Odeon, to drink at the Royal Arms. And why not? One of the few pubs not to have been tricked out with shamrocks and fake antiquities, it boasted reasonable beers, comfortable chairs, and more than adequate sightlines should Kiley fancy watching the Monday night match on wide-screen TV.

It was here that young Nicky Cavanagh, nineteen and learning a trade at U-Fit Instant Exhausts and Tyres, got into an argument with one of the Nealy brothers, one of five. What the argument was about, its starting point and raison d��tre, was still in dispute. Some comment passed about last Sunday�s game at Highbury, a jostled arm, a look that passed between Cavanagh and the girl, underdressed and underaged, by Nealy�s side. Less uncertain were the details of what followed. After a certain amount of mouthing off, a shove here and a push there, the pair of them, Nealy and Cavanagh, stood facing one another with raised fists, an empty bottle of Miller Lite reversed in Cavanagh�s spare hand. Nealy, cursing, turned on his heels and left the bar, hauling his companion with him. Less than thirty minutes later, he returned. Three of the brothers were with him, the fourth enjoying time in Feltham Young Offenders Institution at the government�s expense. His place was taken by a bevy of friends and hangers-on, another four or five. Pick handles, baseball bats. They trapped Cavanagh by the far wall and dragged him out onto the street. By the time the first police sirens could be heard, Cavanagh, bloodied and beaten, lay curled into a broken ball beside the kerb.

Now, some months later, Nicky Cavanagh was in a wheelchair, his only drinking done at home or in the stretch of park which edged the main road near Kiley�s old flat, and Kiley himself had found another pub. Despite statements taken from several witnesses at the time, none of Cavanagh�s attackers had so far been charged.

Janice Law�s latest novel, The Lost Dianes of Iris Weed (Forge Books), was published in January of this year to rave reviews. But interested readers can also now find most of Ms. Law�s early books, including the award-winning Anna Peters mysteries. Thanks to modern print-on-demand and the new on-line publishing companies (see iUniverse), the early Annas are back in print.

Marvin was excited when his agent called. It had been awhile since he�d heard from Audrey, whose soft, raspy voice was permanently, if hopelessly, associated in his mind with sales I and contracts, and the possibility of fame, if not fortune. Some foreign rights? A chapter in an anthology? Ready cash?

�Can you stop by today?� Audrey asked.

Of course, Marvin said he would, clearing out time that would otherwise have been spent in a fruitless perusal of his notebooks or in research on-line for a now overdue article or in sharpening pencils and tidying his desk and probably, the way things had been going, quitting early to hit the beach. Instead, he fought the traffic down I-95 through blizzards of snowbirds and the mind-numbing exhaust of heavy trucks to Audrey�s blue glass office building in the center of Lauderdale.

Audrey Striker had been his agent for six years. Three books, U.K. rights on one, a modest movie option on another: not bad, not great, about par for the course for a midlist author of more ambition than talent and more talent than luck. What else is new? Another agent might have done better for him but would just as likely have done worse. Besides, he liked Audrey�s throaty, world-weary voice, her greed, her toughness.

She was waiting for him, that was surprise number one, and number two, Cindy, her secretary, was nowhere to be seen. He was being allowed an unprecedented private audience. �Come in, Marv,� Audrey called when her office door beeped. She was sitting with her back to the blue-tinged panorama of pastel condo and hotel towers, her large, wellshaped head awkwardly balanced on her small twisted frame. Her spindly legs were propped up on a footstool. Her cane was beside her, the motorized wheelchair she used for longer distances parked in the corner.

�I�ve been looking at your latest royalty statements,� she said.

Marvin�s heart sank. He hoped she had not called him all the way downtown just to tell him that his career was in the toilet. He took one of the handsome leather chairs and angled it away from the bright pastel towers of the cityscape toward the comforting expanse of close-packed bookshelves. He could see the slender spines of his own novels.

�I think we need to make a move in a slightly different direction, and I think you might be right for a proposal I�ve received.�

�What sort of proposal?�

�Completion of a dark-fantasy trilogy. I have the contract in hand.�

�Sorry,� said Marvin, disappointed in spite of himself, �that�s hardly my field.�

Audrey was undeterred. �We already have a fairly detailed plot outline of the first novel, and rough � I�ll be honest � very rough outlines of the second and third. However, with the exception of two characters...� She scrambled among her notes. �Ah, here we go. Someone called Lord Ostrucht and the Lady Fergaine must be spared at all costs. Otherwise, you would have almost complete freedom. And,� she added, seeing Marvin was about to interrupt, �if the first novel proves successful, as I�m sure it will, you would have even more freedom with the later books. The key, Marv, dear, is speed and quality. Write me a good book fast and we can make a lot of money.�

�Look, Audrey, not that I don�t appreciate it, but I write literate contemporary novels. I don�t want a reputation for swords and fantasy.�

Audrey gave a smile that marred rather than enhanced her fine, clean features. Nature, Marvin thought, had had a grand design in mind with Audrey and then, at the last moment, smashed it. �Your last two novels earned mid four-figure advances,� she said. �You can�t live on that. Think of this as work to support your serious writing. Also, I can assure you, Marv, dear, that your name will never be mentioned. Will never be, must never be; that is a most important condition.�

Interesting! Marvin racked his brain to think of who could command serious advances on the basis of rough outlines. The only possibilities were names big enough to scare him just a little. It was one thing to dismiss certain popular works; it was quite another to invent the same sort of audience-pleasing junk. �How much?�

�The whole package is two point five million. I am authorized to give you a partial advance of fifty thousand dollars on signing. On completion of each novel, you and the writer whose name will appear on the jacket split the profits, advance, royalties, everything, fifty-fifty.�

The sum was a shock, almost a physical shock, and it took Marvin a moment to digest the possibilities of repairing the Datsun, paying off his credit cards, leaving the Sun �n Surf apartments.

�Are you on?� Audrey asked.

He could feel a little bubble of exhilaration growing around his heart, but he didn�t quite trust himself to decide yet.

�I know you can do it,� Audrey said, �and I think you can do it quickly.�

�How fast and how long?�

�I need a manuscript of no less than six hundred pages; a little longer would be better, but six hundred would do.�

�Whew!� said Marvin.

�We have a full year. I was able to get an extension,� Audrey added a trifle grimly, �on the grounds of ill health.�

�And are we sick?� Marvin asked.

�We are drunk, if you must know.� Audrey�s tone was drily sarcastic. �We have developed multiple addictions and responsibility issues and a damn bad attitude! I need you to do this, Marv, dear,� she said in a different tone. �You and I will earn every penny, but it�s a pretty penny, and having invested twenty years of work in � our author � I�m not about to lose the best contract I�ve ever negotiated.�

�All right,� said Marvin, �but I�d better have a look at the outline and I�d better read some of the other books � there are others, right?�

�The proverbial five-foot bookshelf.� Audrey levered herself to her feet, grabbed her cane, and limped to the nearest bookcase. She came back with a handful of novels which she laid facedown on her desk. �There will be a confidentiality statement for you to sign,� Audrey said. �All the usual. Basically, you promise never to reveal your authorship.�

�As if I�d want to,� said Marvin.

�But understand, Marv, dear, only your best work will do for this project.�

�My best work, my heart and soul.� Marvin could already feel himself adjusting to prosperity.

Audrey produced a thick folder of legal documents. She offered the confidentiality statement first. �In case, Marv dear, you should change your mind.� This document was as near to ironclad as dozens of �to wits,� �whatsoevers,� and �to whomevers� could make it.

Marvin signed with a flourish, then turned over the first novel in the stack on the desk. �Ah,� he said in surprise; he had read some of Hilaire LaDoux�s novels and liked them. �I thought LaDoux did sci-fi.�

�All the work is on the border of the genres,� Audrey said. �Alternate worlds, alternate futures � same old human nature.�

�Here�s to human nature,� Marvin said and held out his hand for the contract.

�You�re sure?� Audrey asked. �Please be sure, Marv, dear, because there won�t be time to get another writer if you change your mind.�

�Worry not, sweet Audrey!� He flipped to the end of the document and signed his name. �I�m your ghost.�

He left with a stack of LaDoux�s novels in a Burdine�s shopping bag and stopped at his local liquor store on the way home for some really good beer and a bottle of vintage Bordeaux. I�m going to be rich, if not famous, he told himself, and better by far to be at least one or the other.

Marvin sat down on his minuscule balcony, poured a Bellhaven, and opened The Cave of the Winds, the first novel in LaDoux�s Galatan Trilogy. He read for three hours, making notes occasionally on a yellow pad as he picked out favorite vocabulary, sentence structures, the little tricks like adjectives grouped in threes and a fondness � a weakness in Marvin�s eyes � for beginning with participial phrases.

After dinner, he checked the outline for Dragon in the Sun. It was, as Audrey had promised, thoroughly detailed. Ten single-spaced pages outlined an epic and dynastic struggle which he found intimidatingly inventive until he realized that most of the events had been lifted from the Hundred Years War in France and the English Wars of the Roses. Okay!

Marvin made a note to himself to begin some serious historical reading � the Borgias should be good for a plot or two, and the Russians for a series. He was sure that the various Ivans and Peters, not to mention the licentious Catherine the Great, could help flesh out the skimpy notes for Dragon II and III.

Though Marvin normally worked in fits and starts as inspiration took him, he was at his desk early the next morning. He had a year to produce six hundred pages, which meant, he calculated, roughly two pages a day, the other two months left over for the inevitable mishaps which afflict manuscripts as well as man. He was slightly daunted at the prospect of working up scenes and characters which were not his own, and he dawdled, as he usually did, straightening his desk and hopping up to water the plants and take out the garbage. It was on this latter errand that Marvin had the happy inspiration of imaging not the novel but Hilaire LaDoux.

He sat down at his computer and told himself that this new book would be the contrivance of an invented character, a bestselling novelist of considerable talent and an unerring popular touch named Hilaire LaDoux. His LaDoux invariably started early in the morning, well before time for the first drink of the day, and tapped out exactly two � no, better make it four � pages a day, as good genre writers were known for their productivity.

Hilaire LaDoux would work to something ancient, Marvin decided, and he rejected several possibilities before selecting Monteverdi, his Orpheus. Unlike Marvin, who liked to write sitting on his balcony, LaDoux would keep the shades drawn and would wear something elegant and unusual, something Marvin would have to acquire. But for now, semidarkness and Orpheus would have to be good enough. He slid the CD into his computer, heard the chords, exotic with the everlasting strangeness of genius, and began typing: �Trotting along the long, weary, dry road into Balson, Lord Ostrucht saw clouds black as serpents darkening the horizon and laid his hand on the Blade of Zermain. He was alone now, he was the only one left...�

Although Marvin took some time to settle into this routine, so different from his own, novelty proved potent. Day after day, Lord Ostrucht struggled with warriors and wizards, with dragons and other chimeras of the mind, searching always for the Lady Fergaine. At first, Marvin stayed close to the original design, but very soon Ostrucht began to develop some new and interesting habits.

Marvin knew that he was really on his way when he discovered one morning that the clich� dragon of one of the planned set pieces had evolved into a yellow-tinged mist, so faint as to be almost subliminal. This scarcely noticed alteration in the atmosphere gradually disturbed perception, causing its victims to see the world as horror, as such unrelieved and dreadful ugliness that they were driven to despair.

�That�s very good,� Audrey said, looking up from the latest installment of the manuscript. �That�s very good, indeed.� Like all authors, Marvin needed compliments and reassurance, particularly during composition, and she had learned the right way to do this: Praise only the book and never, by so much as a syllable, hint that he had a genuine flair for this sort of thing. In fact, Audrey was convinced that Marvin was writing better than ever, that a sort of literate action was his true m�tier. Instead, she said, �Very LaDoux. Hyper LaDoux.�

Marvin smiled. �The creation of the character was the key thing � and unexpectedly inspiring.�

�Lord Ostrucht,� Audrey said.

�No, no, he�s quite an interesting fellow, but I meant Hilaire LaDoux.�

Audrey looked at him. Yes, now that he mentioned it, she could see some changes, which she had registered without attaching importance to them. An expensive haircut and good clothes were only to be expected from sudden prosperity, but she would not have expected Marvin�s choices: a cerise silk shirt, and an Italian silk and wool sweater patterned in mustard, lavender, and sienna, worn with khakis and sandals. Marvin had always been a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy who owned a blue suit for good. He�d added a pair of tinted glasses, too, which shadowed his eyes and made him look subtly different, enough like the real LaDoux to give Audrey a little frisson, because no image of Hilaire LaDoux had been published for years. Well, she wasn�t going to worry about that! Whatever works, she thought, and congratulated herself on spotting Marv�s potential. �We�ll have no problem completing the book,� she said.

�No problem at all, and, Audrey, I�m getting so many ideas for volumes two and three. I�ve started to plant material for future books. Now this scene,� he turned the pile of manuscript around and ruffled through the pages. �Here, in chapter sixteen where I�ve introduced Ranoch, the squire...�

�I like Ranoch,� said Audrey.

�I�m glad you do, because I see an important role for him in the second volume.�

She pulled out a yellow pad and began making notes. When they were finished, she assured Marvin that the publisher would be thrilled, then shook his hand and saw him out of the office herself, as Cindy, who was apparently not privy to the arrangement with Mr. LaDoux, had been sent on an errand.

Marvin supposed that was only prudent, though in his own mind Hilaire LaDoux came into existence when he put on the very handsome silk jacket that Hilaire wrote in, added the blue-tinted spectacles, and slid the Monteverdi Orpheus into the CD player. During the less and less frequent days when Marvin took off, wore his own clothes, listened to Talking Heads, drank beer, and loafed on the beach, Hilaire LaDoux, Esquire, simply ceased to exist, leaving Marvin to enjoy the fruits of his labor and of LaDoux�s reputation.

And after the first volume was published to acclaim and profit, there seemed no reason why Marvin couldn�t continue writing about Lord Ostrucht and the Lady Fergaine and their ilk virtually forever. The second volume was finished and Marvin was well into the third before the first cloud appeared.

He was in Audrey�s office for one of their now routine private meetings. The latest chapters of The Dragon�s Child lay on the desk between them, and Audrey was running her delicate fingers nervously over the pages. �Quite brilliant,� she said, tapping the manuscript, �everyone agrees, and you know, Marv, dear, I�d be the first to tell you if the books weren�t up to par.�

He did know that.

�So you�ll know this is none of my doing. I�m thoroughly satisfied, and so is everybody at the publishing house.�

�What�s the matter?� Marvin asked, sensing a problem without really being troubled by it. He had money � and people like Audrey � to sort problems out for him. Since the great success of the Dragon books, their relationship had undergone a sea change: Now she waited for his calls and arranged her schedule to suit him. Now it was her plans and her strategy which came under scrutiny as much as his manuscripts.

�Well, it�s Hilaire, of course. Jealousy, I�m sure. If I�d thought, Marv, dear, I�d never have let Dragon be nominated for any award whatsoever. Never.�

�Hilaire?� It took Marvin a moment to remember that there was such a person with volition of his own, a real person whose desires could not be altered by a few lines of type. �He�s unhappy? Fifteen weeks on the bestseller list, foreign rights, a pot of found money � what more does he want?�

�He�s feeling creative again. He feels � well, Marv dear, he feels he doesn�t need you anymore.�

Marvin�s first reaction was fury, modulating into shock. �He can go to hell! I�ve got another three novels plotted out, plus some terrific new characters!� It was illogical, inconceivable, grotesquely and monstrously unfair. And besides, he�d been counting on the money.

�He�s got an ironclad contract. Look, Marv, dear, I�ve tried to talk to him, but he claims he�s inspired. And more important, he�s determined to cut back on the drinking.�

�Great for him. All right, let him write. I still have three good plots and half a dozen new characters.�

�His characters,� she said. �All his. You know that, Marv.�

�So I change the names and we�re still in business.�

�And who are you?� she asked. �Do you think I can get as good a contract as you can get from selling the outlines to Hilaire? Be real.�

Marvin swore there must be some way to indicate that he was the writer behind LaDoux�s latest bestseller, and Audrey raised the confidentiality agreement. But she promised to hold LaDoux up for plenty. �I think even a credit isn�t out of the question. Something along the lines of �based on a story by,� which will do you good later, Marv. Besides, you can get back to your own writing now, and with what you�ll make from the plot outlines...�

Marvin was furious, but though he had a lawyer friend go over the contract not once but twice, there was no way out. LaDoux had all rights to the books. As far as the publishing world went, it was Marvin, not Hilaire LaDoux, who was an imaginary character, or rather, what was worse, a middling author with no real prospects.

For consolation, he had a good whack of money for the work he�d done on The Dragon�s Child, but he absolutely refused to sell anything more, causing Audrey to roll her eyes and to wonder aloud why she hadn�t taken to representing sensible people like stunt men and professional wrestlers. Then she sighed and told Marv that he might perhaps change his mind.

�After all,� she added, accurately, but somewhat unkindly, �now you have what you�ve always said you wanted: time and money to do your own writing.�

So he got busy. He opened his old notebooks and took up a plot he�d begun then set aside, a story about a talented man down on his luck in paradise: a.k.a. South Florida. Marvin struggled with it for several months, but the story was dead in the water. Oh, the writing was good; Marvin had an easy style that rolled from one paragraph to the next without the slightest hitch, but also without the oddity and flare that can illuminate old stories and make familiar characters fresh.

The very smoothness that had rendered Lord Ostrucht, the Lady Fergaine, and a host of supernatural entities plausible worked against Marvin�s contemporary characters. They were just a little bit boring, and, realizing that, he began to find new and creative ways to delay his stints at the computer. When he got fed up with procrastination, he�d throw on his swim trunks and head for the beach: As far as writing went, Marvin was stymied.

Then, one depressing morning, just as an experiment, he got up early, put on Hilaire�s silk writing jacket, and dropped Orpheus on the CD player. When he sat down to work at the keyboard, Lord Ostrucht was waiting for him, sitting melancholy on the back of his black charger, reading a farewell letter from the Lady Fergaine. Marvin almost wept with joy.

Two days later, when he�d at last obtained LaDoux�s address from an unwary new editorial publicist, Marvin was surprised to find that the novelist lived not more than five miles away, along a swanky stretch between the inland waterway and the ocean. Marvin drove out that same night, burdened with a bottle of expensive white French Burgundy and uncertain intentions.

Decorative lights lined the waterway side of the narrow street, illuminating boat slips and gazebos and freestanding decks where the big spenders could sip cocktails and contemplate hundreds of thousands of dollars� worth of marine horsepower. The ocean side was dark with overgrown trees and ambitious plantings. Only a few discreet lights punctuated the shadows, revealing heavy metal gates across nicely tiled driveways or else big signs indicating that trespassing on a job site is a felony in Florida. Since the neighborhood seemed full of folks constructing hurricane bait, there were plenty of these posted warnings.

LaDoux�s house was of an older, less ostentatious vintage, well screened by live oaks, bamboos, and a variety of large and thriving palms � My kind of place, Marvin thought. The flat-roofed building was coated with a scabbed and cracked rust-colored stucco, vaguely Mexican in inspiration and adjoined by a massive screen made of blocks interwoven with a bright climbing vine. Several soft yellow lights, perhaps candles, glimmered behind this screen, and a weak bulb illuminated the weathered front door. Otherwise, the house, which was handsome in conception, but clearly neglected, remained in darkness.

Marvin stepped out of his car to the sound of surf and of cars and motorcycles passing. He rang the intercom buzzer on the gate several times, and he was ready to give up when a voice, quite loud and very close to him, asked what he was doing and what the hell he wanted. Marvin gave a start. Someone about his own height and weight was standing half hidden by the dappled purple and ocher leaves of a rampant ornamental shrub. The man wore a white shirt and an ascot, like a country-house extra in an English movie, but what sent the evening lurching in a direction Marvin had not expected was the man�s appearance. Marvin immediately recognized their surprising resemblance. �I was hoping to see Hilaire LaDoux,� Marvin said. �I�m a big fan of his books.�

�Take a look and get out,� said LaDoux, starting to turn away. Marvin noticed that he carried a drink in one hand.

�You might want to take a look at me, too,� Marvin said. �I wrote your last two novels.�

�What are you doing here?� LaDoux demanded, his voice rising. �You�re not supposed to have any contact with me. That was in the contract!�

�No,� said Marvin, �that was about the only thing that wasn�t.�

�Audrey should have thought of that,� LaDoux said querulously. �Did she give you my address? I�ll fire her if she did. No one�s supposed to have my address.�

�I acquired it elsewhere,� Marvin said. �Look, I thought we might work out a deal. Something beneficial to us both.�

LaDoux eyed him suspiciously. �What�s Audrey been telling you? She�s wrong to give you any hope at all. I�ll get back on schedule.�

Marvin decided that he was probably drunk. �This has nothing to do with Audrey. I�ve constructed some interesting plot outlines, and I want to talk to you about them.�

LaDoux�s eyes glittered. �Plots, plot ideas, used to be my forte,� he remarked. �But no more. The Muse has shown me her backside lately.�

�So we should talk,� Marvin repeated.

�Audrey said you were being difficult. Audrey said you didn�t want to sell anything.�

�Well, now I need the money.�

�Where is this material?�

Marvin tapped his breast pocket. He had a diskette, plus an envelope with a few printed pages from one of his detailed outlines.

�Pull your car in,� LaDoux said. He opened the gate and waved Marvin up the short drive and into the dark and empty garage.

The door clattered down behind them, giving Marvin a moment�s trepidation before his host switched on a light. Marvin stepped out with the bottle of wine. He followed LaDoux through the hall and a book- and paper-strewn dining room that opened onto the terrace and a rustling jungle of palms and banyans. On the west side, a heavy flowering vine cut off the lights and noise of the street with a cascade of foliage and deep red blossoms, while the east was open to the coal-black sea, fringed white with breakers along the sand. The place struck him as absolutely perfect.

�For me?� LaDoux asked when Marvin held out the bottle. �Naughty. I�m reformed, on the wagon, learning abstinence.� He gave a sour laugh. �We�re at the mercy of mysterious forces. That�s the reality of it.�

Marvin agreed; he certainly felt that way at the moment.

��Course, a certain awareness of mysterious forces is what pays our bills.� LaDoux opened the bottle expertly and poured the wine into two large and ornate glasses. He raised his glass silently and took a long drink. �Not bad.�

Marvin said nothing.

�And your problem?� LaDoux asked, after he�d refilled their glasses for a second time. �I assume there is a problem.�

�I can�t do my own work anymore. The only ideas I get now are for the Dragon novels, for Ostrucht and his Lady. Even your beautiful terrace with the sound of the sea suggests...� Marvin sighed. �I�ve been ruined after writing your novels.�

�You wrote them rather well, the critics say. Of course, my reputation provided a leg up there,� he added.

Marvin nodded. He knew the ways of the literary world.

�So?�

�I thought we might collaborate,� said Marvin.

�But I don�t need you now, and it�s time for you to depart � in the literary sense, I mean.� He splashed more wine into each glass. �There�s no reason for you to leave this nice Burgundy.�

�Yet you were willing to buy the outline for the second trilogy.�

�The flesh is weak,� LaDoux admitted.

�Perhaps you�d like to see a sample.�

He looked up with an eager expression and stretched out his hand. He needed help, whatever he said. �Let me see.�

�One page.� Marvin opened the envelope and handed over the synopsis of the first five chapters.

LaDoux put on a pair of tinted glasses and scanned the copy. �Like this wine, not grand cru, but very nice. And the rest?�

�Good. Audrey knows. She wanted to buy them for you.�

�Audrey has somewhat lost confidence in me,� LaDoux said. In the silence that followed, Marvin listened to a rustling in the shrubbery and the night wind in the palms. Perhaps Lord Ostrucht should be sent on a sea voyage to some hot, tropical land. �What do you want?� LaDoux asked abruptly.

�To write some of the books,� Marvin said.

�But not all of them?�

�Not all of them.�

LaDoux stared at him for a minute. �We�ll drink to that,� he said. �But now I want to see the rest of the plots.�

�They�re on this diskette.� Marvin drew the floppy out of his pocket and dropped it back in. �We�ll call Audrey, shall we? Have her come over and draw up a contract.�

LaDoux hesitated, then smiled. There was an avidity about him that both encouraged and disgusted Marvin. �Right. We�ll call Audrey. To whom we owe so much. Including this whole bloody situation.� He stood up. �My office is upstairs. I never do business on the terrace.�

Inside, LaDoux switched on the weak hall light and started upstairs. Marvin saw old woodwork, Mexican tiles, cracked and dirty plaster. The main stairs made a steep run to a landing, then turned left. A full moon was shining through the tall window at the top, and Marvin was about to remark on its bright beauty when LaDoux suddenly pivoted on the landing and kicked him square in the gut. Marvin gasped, his lungs suddenly airless, and grabbed the banister to keep from falling. LaDoux struck him again, in the face this time, sending Marvin tumbling backward down the stair to land flat at the bottom.

He was quite helpless. His lungs were deflated, and he couldn�t make his legs work. The stair rose above him like a monstrous wave, down which LaDoux dropped toward him like a surfer. Marvin waved his arms, trying to pull air into his lungs, trying to strike LaDoux, who, clearly not as drunk as he�d appeared, caught Marvin under the arms and dragged him down the back hall. He kicked open the French door and pulled Marvin onto the grass and then, to his rising horror, toward the shore. Out of shock and surprise rose an awareness that he was very likely going to die.

Marvin tried to shout, but his voice was a cracked whisper, lost in the wind and surf. LaDoux hauled him through a low hedge and unceremoniously dropped him over the sea wall onto the sand. Marvin tried to get to his feet, but his whole body was focused on acquiring air and his limbs refused to cooperate.

LaDoux grasped him again and started toward the water, but here Marvin began digging his heels and his hands into the soft, deep sand, causing LaDoux to swerve and stagger. It was dark on the beach, too, the few lights dazzling and confusing rather than illuminating. Twice LaDoux dropped to his knees, but though Marvin could impede their progress he could not stop it. Drops of spray landed on his shirt as he was dragged through a fishy, salty-smelling band of wrack. Then LaDoux splashed into the surf, and cold water shocked Marvin�s back.

There were crushed shells underfoot. Unsteady, LaDoux slipped both left and right, stumbling on every step. Waves broke over Marvin�s head and sloshed down his legs. �The diskette,� he managed to gasp. �It�s in my pocket.�

LaDoux stopped and released one of Marvin�s arms, dropping him halfway into the water. Marvin jerked up his head, took a great gulp of air, and, as LaDoux fumbled in his shirt pocket, threw himself sideways, pulling LaDoux under with him.

They weren�t in more than a foot of water, but the shore was at once soft and gritty, the band of ground-up shells unstable beneath them. Thrashing and struggling, they got a little farther out, then farther yet, and as they swallowed more water and took more blows, they found it harder and harder to get back on their knees, to find their feet.

At last, they floundered into chest-deep water, and they were half swimming, half wrestling, each trying to hold the other under, when a big roller crashed into them, separating them and turning Marvin head over heels. As he felt himself dragged out by the current, he forgot LaDoux, forgot everything but the shore, dry land, air. He paddled forward, clawing for ground, and after a second wave broke over his head felt the rough band of shells under his hands and lurched onto the shore, gasping for breath and shaking with cold and shock.

He crawled onto the beach and fell forward on his face. The waves whooshed and thundered behind him, his lungs burned, the night wind chilled his sore back. He had nearly died; someone had tried to kill him; he had possibly drowned a man. With this, he remembered his danger and scrambled painfully to his feet, but he could not see LaDoux.

Marvin called softly: nothing but the sea and the rattle of palm fronds, and somewhere far away, the sound of traffic, of civilization. He limped to the water�s edge and peered into the darkness for what seemed a long time before he saw a whitish something as inert as a log rising and falling in the surf. Marvin waited until he was sure of that inertia before wading out into the water and hauling LaDoux�s body to shore.

Once he had wrestled the corpse up onto the sand, he laid his hand on LaDoux�s chest and felt for a pulse. When all signs proved negative, Marvin sat down, put his head between his knees, and vomited on the sand. �You�ve killed the golden goose,� said a voice in his mind.

And another, even less welcome thought followed: Hilaire LaDoux was someone whose death would be investigated, whose loss would be news. Marvin�s own version of events, so implausible and peculiar that even he had trouble crediting what had happened, would come under scrutiny. He had been attacked, there had been a struggle, and Marvin had survived without anything to prove his story. It did not take a novelist�s imagination to see big difficulties, both professional and legal, ahead for Hilaire LaDoux�s fired ghost writer.

Marvin stood up, washed off his mouth with salt water, and began to undress, dropping his sodden clothing on the sand beside the corpse. Next he turned to LaDoux, though the body already felt cold and the slippery feel of the skin, as well as LaDoux�s unsettling resemblance to himself, turned Marvin�s stomach and made his hands shake.

Finally, after an exhausting struggle, he managed to get his own clothes onto the body and jammed his sneakers on its feet. The diskette, ironically, was still in the pocket of his shirt. Marvin retrieved it and set it on the sea wall before dragging LaDoux back to the water. He towed the body out as far as he dared, and when he felt the first signs of a rip current, he let it go.

Back on shore, he bundled up the novelist�s wet and sandy clothes. One shoe was missing, and he made a futile search of the sand before returning to the house. The clothing went into the washer, the remaining shoe in a plastic bag. Up in LaDoux�s bedroom, Marvin found a change of clothes and dry sneakers. After he composed a brief note for Audrey, he drove north to the public beach, where he abandoned his car, keys, and wallet. He discarded LaDoux�s incriminating shoe in a trash barrel. Then Marvin went down to the surf, took off his borrowed sneakers, and slogged back along the shore to the house. He let himself in, found a bottle of scotch, and went up to bed.

A day later, Marvin saw a brief report about his abandoned car, and within a week read an account of the recovery of his body. He waited a few days before calling Audrey. By then he knew a great deal more about his new identity: debts, alcoholism, dubious investments, an estranged family, and the absolute impossibility of ever holding a driver�s license again.

On the other hand, he had a fair-sized bank balance, a spectacular if deteriorated house, and more important than all the rest, Lord Ostrucht and his lady, for whom Marvin, or Hilaire, as he must now call himself, had wonderful plans. He reached for the desk phone and dialed. �Audrey?�

�Yes, Audrey Striker speaking.� Her response seemed tentative; voices are, after all, hard to disguise.

�Hilaire LaDoux. I�m really flying on the new novel, and I wondered if you�d like me to send you the finished chapters.�

Again, the hesitation. He could almost hear the wheels turning. �Of course I would,� she said with a fair show of enthusiasm. �But Hilaire, you�re working? You�re really working? Because I understood you wanted me to find someone to replace poor Marvin � you heard about that?�

�Yes, I did. I can�t help feeling a little guilty. He sold me his last outlines, you know. Yes, yes, he cut you out, the naughty boy. But poor fellow! The writer�s life is not always a happy one.�

�I�d actually found someone � tentatively, you understand. I thought perhaps a woman writer this time...� In truth, Audrey had been nearly at her wit�s end.

�Quite, quite unnecessary,� he said briskly. �I�ve had a genuinely life-changing experience. You might say I met a ghost, Audrey, and I can assure you I foresee no more writing problems from here on in.�

That night, there�s no sleeping. Too much strudel. I go into the kitchen for warm milk and am reaching for the switch when I see the flashlight bobbing in Willis�s backyard. I leave the light off and sit away from the window.

I�m shocked. He�s a bag of bones, with a wispy beard and hair down to his shoulders. He�s on his knees, lifting patio stones, poking underneath with a crowbar. At first I think he�s releveling, but he�s dropping the stones back crooked. In the glow of the flashlight he looks crazy, a stick man digging for who knows what.

After an hour I tell myself I�ll be just as loony as Willis if I don�t get back to bed. I go, but the sleep doesn�t come. I keep hearing Mrs. Jablonski�s voice, over and over like on the phonograph, telling the story of Lynette, her baby, and young Willis.

And Mr. Angell.

John Dirckx is a medical doctor, but he rarely employs significant medical details and clues in his mysteries, nor does he often set his stories in hospitals or other medical facilities. Instead, the Ohio author writes primarily a type of police procedural, with a series character who is African-American and cases that involve all layers of society. Detective Auburn�s latest case takes him to the self-enclosed world of a big hotel.

�Good morning! This is Kitty Partridge in the Supercool Ninety-Two traffic chopper. We�re live and aloft over the Interstate, just east of downtown. Traffic is moving smoothly through the area, with only the usual rush-hour pileups at the exits. There�s a small truck tipped over in the median just west of the Heron Pike interchange, so if you�re east-bound there, be alert for workers on the left shoulder, and watch for possible stoppages as they right the truck and tow it into the fast lane.�

Halfway through her transmission, and without dropping a syllable, Kitty Partridge reached for the camcorder with her right hand and jogged her pilot�s elbow with her left. Then, using hand signals, she drew his attention to something almost directly below, and asked him to circle to the left and hover.

Detective Sergeant Cyrus Auburn was just getting settled into his desk chair for his morning session at the computer when Lieutenant Savage appeared in the doorway. �Think you can find the Moreland Building?� he asked.

�I don�t know. Is it missing?�

�Stamaty�s got a possible homicide over there. Kestrel�s already on his way in the evidence van, but you can probably beat him on foot at this time of the morning.�

�ID on the victim?�

�None yet. Asian. Blunt injuries.�

�Where in the building?�

�The roof.�

It took Auburn less than five minutes to reach the Moreland Building, a squat and sooty limestone structure that was stuffed with law offices, insurance agencies, stock brokerages, and collection agencies. The elevator got him to the fourth floor. There, Patrolman Fritz Dollinger met him and conducted him to an enclosed iron staircase that led up to the roof. When they stepped out into the bright and breezy May morning, Auburn saw that Kestrel, the evidence technician, had beat him after all.

A low stone parapet surrounded the tar and gravel roof on all sides. Much of the space was taken up by air-conditioning equipment, the elevator cabin, and the base of a soaring radio tower. In the middle of an open stretch, the body of a man lay on its back with arms outstretched, and Kestrel was squatting over it and conferring with Nick Stamaty, the coroner�s investigator.

Auburn nodded to the others and inspected the body. An Asian or Near-Eastern male, between forty and fifty, slightly built, wearing black trousers with a broad satin stripe down the outside of each leg, a starched white shirt, black cutaway vest, black bowtie � the standard uniform of a bartender, banquet server, or blackjack dealer. The clothes were dusty and tom. The man�s neck was bent at an unnatural angle and a livid crease ran down the right side of his face.

�Who found him?� asked Auburn.

�Traffic helicopter spotted him,� said Stamaty. �He was twisted up like a pretzel when I got here. I took a whole roll of pictures before I moved him.�

Kestrel, the evidence technician, sniffed a couple of times to signify his disapproval of Stamaty�s moving the body before he�d arrived on the scene to take his own pictures.

�How long�s he been dead?� Auburn asked Stamaty.

�Unofficially, six hours tops.�

Auburn looked at his watch. �No ID on him yet?�

�Not unless his name is Benjamin Franklin.�

�Wallet full of cash?�

�No wallet, but something like twelve grand in big bills.� Stamaty raised the lid of his field kit to show two clear plastic bags full of currency. �The bags were taped to his chest. This was all he had in his pockets.� He handed over a key to a locker at the Amtrak station on Delaware Avenue.

Auburn surveyed his surroundings. The Moreland Building was flanked by taller buildings on either side, and people were watching them from some of the windows in one of the buildings. Something grabbed him in the pit of the stomach when he looked up to the top of the radio tower, silhouetted against the limitless blue reaches of the morning sky. �Do you think he jumped from up there?�

�Not from the top. Possibly from that lowest platform. Something bashed him in the face while his heart was still beating. Could have been that bottom strut. But I�m not climbing up there to find out.�

Kestrel sniffed again. If anybody had to climb up there, it would probably be him. �Why would a guy with all that money on him commit suicide?� Kestrel asked.

�Maybe the money wasn�t on him when he jumped,� suggested Stamaty, who dabbled in psychology and enjoyed baiting the police with conundrums. �They say when somebody shoots himself in Monte Carlo, the cops stuff his pockets with thousand-franc notes so they can sign it out as an unsolved murder and avoid the bad publicity for the gambling casinos.�

�This isn�t Monte Carlo,� said Auburn, �and the cash wasn�t in his pockets. I think we�ve got ourselves a bag man here, who worked in a bar or a restaurant downtown. He got on somebody�s wrong side. They wasted him and grabbed his wallet, but missed the jackpot.�

�How�d he get up here, Sergeant?� asked Dollinger. �I was first on the scene, and it took the building super twenty minutes to track down a key to the roof.�

�Why not from one of those windows?� Auburn pointed to the nearer of the adjacent buildings, the Skyliner Hotel, which stood about five stories taller than the Moreland Building. This side of the hotel was mostly blank brick wall, but three windows, probably in a stairwell, stood in a vertical row directly above where the body lay. �Bet you something like twelve grand in big bills he�s a waiter or a bartender in there.�

�Want me to check?� asked Dollinger.

�I�ll come with you. I want to look at those windows from inside.� He turned back to Stamaty. �Lieutenant Savage says we haven�t got any missing person report on anybody who fits this description,� he said, �and neither does the sheriff. Has he got any scars or tattoos?�

�Or other distinguishing marks? I didn�t see any, but then I didn�t do a full examination with our audience steadily growing up there in the grandstand.�

Auburn talked briefly to the building superintendent, a portly individual in a maroon blazer, breathless and speechless with agitation. Access to the roof was strictly limited to maintenance personnel. As far as the super knew, nobody had been up there since the last elevator inspection in March. He assured Auburn that the dead man didn�t work in his building.

Auburn and Dollinger took the elevator to street level and stepped next door to the Skyliner Dorina Hotel, arguably the most upscale hotel in town. It had started life in the nineteenth century with a different name. The wiring and plumbing had been redone in the sixties to conform to code, but most of the original mahogany, marble, and wrought iron was still in evidence.

The liveried doorman gave Dollinger�s uniform a quasi-military salute. The lobby was thronged with people milling around an ornamental pool with a fountain that splashed and sparkled under a crystal chandelier. The elevator had buttons for nine floors, but the top two contained executive suites and could only be accessed with a pass card. They started out on the fifth floor to get their bearings and found that the window overlooking the roof of the Moreland Building was directly opposite the elevators. On the fifth and sixth floors the windows had spindly-legged antique tables in front of them, apparently for the purpose of concealing the accumulation of dust, dead flies, candy wrappers, and cigarette butts on the window sills.

But on the seventh floor there was no table, and a mere glance at the window sill showed that its coating of dust had recently been disturbed by something dragged across it. The window was securely latched. �This has to be it,� said Dollinger. �There aren�t any windows facing this way on the floors above.�

Kestrel was still working about forty feet below. They tried to attract his attention, but the sun was in his eyes, and they didn�t dare to touch the window, much less open it.

�I�ll go,� said Dollinger.

Auburn paced the long corridor, which smelled faintly of carpet deodorizer and stale food. No sound came from behind any of the recessed doors. A couple of trays with soiled dishes and silverware rested on the floor outside the first room to the left of the elevator, from whose knob hung a �Do Not Disturb� sign. An ugly and useless side table stood ten yards down the hall from the elevator under a tarnished mirror.

As Auburn was straightening his tie, the elevator door opened and a maid stepped off pushing a wheeled utility cart full of clean linen and supplies. Statuesque despite her shapeless smock, she stood half a head taller than Auburn, and he didn�t need to read her nametag to recognize Queena Dezwart.

Auburn showed identification. Years earlier, when he was a beat cop, he�d questioned her about some pilfered supplies at the Chalfont Hospital, but they both pretended they�d never met before.

�Can you tell me how many people are staying on this floor right now?�

She pulled a folded printout from her pocket and ran a polished thumbnail down the list. �There�s only two rooms occupied. Seven-oh-one and Seven-oh-nine.�

�You mean there�s nobody in any of these other rooms?�

�Is something wrong?�

Auburn pointed out the window and down. �Don�t touch anything there.�

�May the Lord have mercy! He dead?�

�Yes, ma�am. Looks like he jumped or fell from this window. Recognize him?�

�I don�t think so. That table�s supposed to be here in front of the window. And the window�s supposed to be locked.�

�It is locked. Did you shut it this morning?�

�Me? Man, you was here when I got here. Maybe you locked it?� Her bantering tone of mock indignation and her total command of the situation took Auburn back ten years to their last encounter.

�I need to look around here,� said Auburn. �Have you got a passkey to all these rooms that are supposed to be empty?�

She looked at him as if he�d asked her to lend him fifty dollars. �Mmm-hmm. And I got my work to do, too.�

�Two rooms.�

�Only one for now. This one says �Do not disturb.� In other words, �Queena, keep out.��

Auburn knocked at Room 701. There was a longish delay, during which Queena Dezwart shoved her cart in the direction of Room 709, let herself in, blocked the door open, and pulled back the curtains.

At length the door of Room 701 swung slowly open to reveal a stout and rumpled man, still in his pajamas, scowling up at Auburn from the seat of a platform-style motorized invalid chair. Auburn showed identification with one hand and took charge of the door with the other.

�Sorry to bother you so early,� he said. (It was a quarter past nine.) �I�m investigating an accident that may have happened here outside your room. Did you hear anything unusual during the night?�

The controls of the chair were mounted on a straight handlebar. The man manipulated these and the wheelchair rolled back away from the door with an electric whine. �Come on in.�

The room was dark except for a sliver of daylight where the curtains didn�t meet.

The covers were heaped in a tangle at the foot of the bed where the tenant had evidently thrown them moments before. An open briefcase full of papers stood on the lowboy before the window.

�What is it you�re looking for?� He rubbed his eyes, scratched his head, and put on a bedside light. Auburn guessed his age at about forty. His legs, shriveled and lifeless in bulky knitted wraps, were like two Christmas stockings dangling from a mantelpiece.

�We think somebody jumped or fell from the window across the hall last night. I was wondering if you heard anything.� He got out a three-by-five-inch file card and a pen.

�There�s always noise in a hotel. Usually I can tune it out pretty good.� He rubbed his eyes again. He was gradually waking up. �There was some commotion out there in the middle of the night. I thought they were probably putting an extra bed in one of the rooms.�

�Did you hear voices?�

�No voices.�

�What time would this have been?�

�I watched TV until about one o�clock. I was just falling asleep when I heard them moving stuff out there. After that I slept okay until a garbage truck down in the alley woke me up around half-past six this morning.�

�Your name, sir?�

�Billings. Chaz.� He proffered a damp, pudgy hand.

�Staying here by yourself, Mr. Billings?�

�Sure. I sell fiberglass products for an outfit in Boston. Mostly to contractors and government agencies. I�m on the road most of the time. You say somebody fell out the window?�

�That�s the way it looks. He may have had a little help.�

�Criminy. Dead?�

�Yes, sir.�

�Criminy.�

�Such an idea!� The nurse bridled indignantly, crumpling the offending piece of paper into a ball and shying it successfully at the waste-paper basket. �Asking me to kill you! Saying I�ll find it easy because I�ve done it before! I�ve never heard such wicked nonsense, Elaine!� Even when she wasn�t angry, Muriel tended to speak in short staccato sentences ending with oral exclamation marks. �And accusing me of killing your husband! I told you, Robin has had enough and just felt he must get away. So if you die it won�t bring him back to you. And if he�s left you in this life, he�s hardly likely to want to see you in another!� Looking into Elaine�s eyes, Muriel saw the pain in them and felt a sudden unfamiliar stab of remorse at having spoken so bluntly. But she had to put the poor woman off such a morbid idea. �Well, perhaps I�m wrong,� she conceded. �Perhaps you�ll be young and strong again in heaven, and then you will come back together.� She had been talking half facetiously, but for a moment Elaine�s eyes had glowed, and her hands had fallen peacefully together in her lap. Muriel felt another unfamiliar sensation � awareness of another person�s feelings � and found herself glad that the look of pain had gone; it had made her feel quite uncomfortable.

But when she got up to the big bedroom, her indignation was back in place. Robin was on the two-seater sofa, reading the paper, and she banged down heavily beside him.

�She�s just accused me of murdering you, sweetie,� she told him. �She probably thinks I�ve dumped you in the cellar.� She suddenly saw the funny side of it and burst out laughing. Muriel�s laughter was a back-of-the-gods affair, and Robin clamped his hand across her mouth.

�It�s all right,� she said, wiping her eyes. �She�s under the spare room.�

�We can�t take any risks.�

�You worry too much.�

�I do worry. Why does she think you killed me?�

�As if you didn�t know!� Playfully she pinched his cheek. �She can�t believe you�d ever choose to leave her.�

She saw him wince, and heard his faint moan.

�Hey! None of that now!�

�No, no,� he assured her, taking hold of her chubby red hand. He would have to forget about Elaine�s hands. And her eyes... �It was just... I�m all right. I couldn�t have taken another moment.� Because he had reached a point where he could no longer bear to look at the remains of his wife. And had been missing for too long a faithful time what Muriel had recently begun to give him...

�That�s not all,� she was telling him. �She begged me to kill her, too, so that you could be reunited. Said I would know what to use, that I would have access, and that it would be easy for me because I�d done it before. The cheek of it, sweetie!�

�She has to think you killed me,� he said, trying not to shudder as the pang went through him. �I should have realized she was bound to. It�s the only way she can explain my disappearance. As it is, she must be desperately unhappy.�

�Yes...� Muriel bounced to her feet, her face flaming.

�What is it?�

�There aren�t many situations,� she answered, slowly sitting down again, �where it�s in one�s gift to please all parties.�

�I don�t��

�She wants to die. We�d be happier without her.�

�For God�s sake, Muriel��

�So far as she�s concerned, I�m guilty of murder already. And if she ever finds out about you and me � and she will find out, one way or another, eventually � it�ll be worse for her than death.�

�Yes...�

�It�ll be a kindness,� Muriel said decisively. �Nobody should live the way she has to. And she�s asked me, Robin, it�s what she wants. She�s right about one thing, too, sweetie. I may not have done it before, but I do know what to use and how to get hold of it. There�ll be no danger. The doctor said she could go any time.�

�Oh my God, yes.� He could not escape her logic.

�I said this setup would work, and it�s working. Trust me again now.�

�I will, my Venus.� He would never love her, but he adored her self-confidence.

�So why not go down for a bottle of champagne, and we can toast our humanitarian enterprise?�

�But isn�t that a bit��

�It�s what we all want, my darling. You, me, and Elaine. That�s all you have to think of.�

After a kiss that augured well for the later part of the evening, Robin went out onto the landing and tiptoed down the stairs. As he crept past his wife�s room he heard weeping, and it was a compassionate and a righteous man who opened his cellar door.

Amy Myers currently lives in Kent, where she was born, but she spent a number of years in Paris, and it was there she got the idea for her best-known character, Victorian chef detective Auguste Didier. This time a different series character, Tom Wasp, Victorian chimney sweep, takes the stage. Wasp has so far appeared only in short stories; in the works, though, is a full-length Wasp novel. A collection of Myers short stories, Murder, �Orrible Murder, is also due soon.

�Tom Wasp,� roared Billy Buckler, �that�s a good clean sweep, that is.� Ned � he�s my apprentice � had just taken the tuggy cloth away, and we looked up the flue approvingly. My old Smart�s sweeping machine still does a grand job. �What say you to a mutton chop and a pint of our best ale?�

I�d have been happier to say yes to our usual threepence, but Billy�s tavern isn�t a place where one should begin a discussion of that sort. You may know of the Old Ivy, in Ivy Lane off London�s Strand. It leads to the Ivy steps on the river Thames, where the halfpenny steamboats moor. It is a dark narrow place, much dignified by the name �lane,� and the tavern is as full of villains as Wapping�s Paddy Goose. But business is business, and Ned and I treat Billy�s chimney with as much respect as were the queen to invite us to sweep the flues of Buckingham Palace.

Billy beamed, and all fifteen stone of him wobbled in his pleasure at our acceptance. �There�s rare entertainment tonight, lads: a Judge and Jury show.�

I noticed that despite the smile, his face was sweating and wondered what troubled him. I knew what troubled me. Today�s Judge and Jury clubs in the 1860s aren�t what they were twenty years ago, or even five years ago when the famous so-called �Baron� Nicholson brought his entertainment to the Coal Hole tavern in Fountain Court, not a stone�s throw away from here. As you know, these �clubs� exist for the reenactment of the latest scandalous cases, usually of murder, where the whole audience is the jury and every detail an excuse for a bawdy joke. No ladies used to be admitted, of course, though as the standard declined and more custom was needed, ladies were allowed in afterwards to view the Poses Plastiques � only they aren�t usually ladies, and the spectacle of classical poses is not usually educational.

�What�s the case?� I asked Billy cautiously. You might wonder why I didn�t object on Ned�s behalf, he being of tender years. Ned don�t climb flues, but he climbs the dirty flue of life each day. Fortunately he leaves the filth around him and always comes out into the light clean.

Billy Buckler was sweating even harder now. �Kitty Robinson,� he said, �my serving girl. Pulled out of the river last week. Suicide, so they say. But who�s to blame for that, eh?�

�Now that, Billy, I�m sore distressed to learn.� I meant it. Kitty had seemed a pretty, modest sort of girl, or had been when she arrived up from foreign parts. Dorset, she�d said. She�d always give me a smile and Ned a bit of pie, so we were both her loyal servants.

�She�s on my conscience,� Billy said heavily.

�Why, Billy?� It was news to me that Billy had one. His face would still be beaming at you if he rammed a knife in your gullet.

�You�ll find out this evening, Tom Wasp.�

The next time Sussock saw the woman she was lying on a stainless-steel table, naked save for a starched white towel which had been draped over her coyly termed, Sussock thought, �private parts.� Yet she looked different, oh so different, for now, in place of a pleasant, well-balanced face, the skin that covered the front of her skull had been pulled down and lay in folds about her eyes. Her cheeks seemed fuller and bruised, her lips swollen. Only her chin remained as Sussock had first seen it. The top of the skull had been exposed and Reynolds, looking pleased with himself, said, �Just as I thought.�

�A fractured skull?� Sussock said.

�Indeed.�

�A single blow?� Sussock glanced at the mortuary assistant, a man of slight build and slicked-back hair, and noted as he had on previous occasions an unpleasant gleam in the man�s eyes. Sussock thought that he looked at the deceased woman like a hungry man might look at a meal.

�Just one blow,� Reynolds confirmed, �but it was quite sufficient to send her into the hereafter. She was struck from behind... The implement had, has, a linear quality to it... slender and unyielding.�

�A poker?�

�That sort of thing. Now of the deceased herself. She appears to be about sixty to sixty-five years of age, well nourished... She wears a wedding ring... She�s used to a gentle life, soft hands, clean nails. She has a distinct birthmark on the inside of her left thigh... about two inches across.�

�Looks like Australia,� Sussock said.

�Yes... on its side,� Reynolds replied. �I see what you mean. In life she would have been five feet eight inches tall, tall for a woman, especially a woman from the West of Scotland. You know someone, somewhere, will be wondering where on earth she is.�

When she�s wearing her mystery writer�s hat, the author of �The Path of Bones� goes by the name Mary Freeman. That byline appears on an ongoing mystery series for Putnam Berkley, and with the publication of Garden View, in May of 2002, the books in that series numbered four. As Mary Rosenblum, the author has written several science fiction novels as well as many science fiction short stories. Her new story for us is her first short mystery.

�What if there is no water?� Panting, Teo scrambled up the boulder behind him, his brown skin slick with sweat. �What if there is nothing?�

Jeremiah Apple paused at the crest of the stone, aware of the lightness of his water bottle and the fear in Teo�s voice. The desert breathed on his neck, its touch light and dry. �There�ll be water.� He stroked his hand across the sensuous curve of the stone. �Water shaped this,� he told the boy. �The guy who mapped this hole put the contents at five thousand gallons or more. There�ll be something. And if there isn�t,� he went on, holding out a hand to the skinny Teo, �I left a cache about a half-day�s walk from here. We�ll be all right.�

�Okay.� Teo scrambled up beside him, politely ignoring the offer of assistance.

His fear wasn�t simply suppressed, it had vanished, like drops of water spilled on the burning rocks of this desert land. That was why he had let the boy join him on what would be a week-long hike into the desert to check water holes for Fish and Game. Normally, he hiked the deserts alone. He scrambled up the next cascade of boulders.

�Ah.� The syllable escaped him involuntarily, and he paused, hands on a hot curve of the sandstone that had been rounded and shaped by millenia of flowing water. The tinaja lay before him, round as an earthenware jug, twenty feet across, its lip a soft curve as if carved by human hands, filled with a silvery treasure of water. Above would be another. And another, funnels and traps for the occasional rains that walked this parched land.

�Wow, look at that!� Shoving up beside him, Teo said a rapid Hail Mary in Spanish, then sneaked an embarrassed glance at Jeremiah. �All that water, and man, it�s burning all round.� His voice was hushed, as if he were in church.

A bee bounced off Jermiah�s cheek, reoriented, then dived to the edge of the water to pause and sip. Slowly, Jeremiah slipped his cupped hands beneath the silver skin and raised a dripping handful. Tiny motes danced in the water, fairy shrimp or clam shrimp, ostracods, a few Triops even. He closed his eyes and bent his head to it, letting it flow over his lips, rich with the taste of life.

�Hey, there�s stuff in the water.� Teo had filled his water bottle, was regarding the shimmering dance of creatures with a jaundiced eye. �You drink that?�

�They�re clean,� Jeremiah said, and Teo shrugged. And drank.

They stripped and soaked in the hole, faces turned to the narrow lane of endless sky above, heat on the face, cool water a blessing and an amazement. After, they got out and scrambled naked up to the next tinaja and the next, Jeremiah keeping mental books in his head.

Three thousand gallons maybe, he figured. After the fourth pool, they found sand floors and crusted scums of dried algae as testament to vanished water. Global warming? Maybe. Or just a dry year. Rain walked a random path out here. Jeremiah made his notes and recorded the GPS coordinates. That last man to record these watering spots for Fish and Game had had a compass only. He had not done a half-bad job.

In the afternoon heat they scrambled down the tumble of water-smoothed boulders that guarded the water and descended once more to the smooth floor of the bajada.

�Hey, I bet Ramon knows this hole,� Teo said. �He knows all the water around.�

�I bet he does.� Jeremiah laughed, because he had met Teo�s uncle, Ramon Montoya, at another hole not too far from here. �So how come your uncle went to Los Angeles?�

�He went to see my aunt. She is a teacher, and he will ask her for money.� Teo gave him a considering look. �He told me not to tell my grandmother, but he would not mind, I think, if I tell you. It is for my college. He found a treasure, and he needs the money to get it.� Teo�s eyes glittered with conspiracy. �But it is a secret. You understand?�

Jeremiah said nothing at first, although he felt a moment of alarm that the quiet, hardworking Ramon might have been tricked by some Anglo with a treasure map and a glib story. It didn�t fit his perception of Ramon. �I won�t tell anyone,� Jeremiah said.

They didn�t speak of Ramon again, moving without conversation in the rhythms of hiking in desert heat. The sun leaned on you and thoughts dwindled to simple observation. Bone. Rock. Scat. Some of the bones had belonged to small creatures. Some might be human. People had lived in this land for millennia. Swallows of warm water kept the tongue moist, but didn�t allay thirst. Thirst was a sensation in the bones out here. It inhabited you, drawing you into the moist core of your being.

The sun was setting as they reached the level stretch of ground where Jeremiah had intended to sleep. He had cached food here a week ago, and more water in plastic jugs. A huge ocotillo raised octopus arms above the site, and the containers of food were intact in their rock shelter. A scorpion retreated, sting at the ready, as he gingerly fished them out. Teo was already spreading out the camping pad and old flannel sheet that served as his bed.

�Look.� Jeremiah pointed out across the flat plain of the bajada. �You can see them best at dusk. Or in the moonlight.�

Teo rose, squinting, caught his breath. �Paths. Who made them out here?�

�People going to water.� The trails glimmered, faintly paler than the surrounding rock and sand, beaten hard by thousands of years of feet making their way to those pools of water in the stone. They converged like veins, scattered with the bits of old bones of the ones who had not made their way to the end. Dust rose in the distance and Jeremiah squinted against the fading gleam of sunset, reaching for his compact binoculars. Pickup. It was following a shallow wash, heading in the direction of the distant town. Light glittered on the windshield and Jeremiah made out the Sheriff�s Department logo as the truck followed the twisting wash. As it drew parallel to them, the truck slowed, halted. Jeremiah walked over to it, bending down some to look through the open window.

�I hoped it was you.� Deputy Hardy Jamison peered across the seat, his freckled face red from failed sunscreen. �Glad it�s not another one of those damn college kids out for a hike.�

�You lose a college kid?� Jeremiah asked.

�Nah. A couple of them found another one of those godforsaken wetbacks out there, dried out like jerky. How do they think they�re gonna walk five days through this heat with a single gallon of water?� He turned his head and spat through the open window. �Least I scared the kids out of here. Told �em a few stories.�

Jeremiah now noticed the body bag in the bed of the pickup. It happened often. You found the trails of castoff clothes, shoes, sometimes even a water jug with water still in it, as the sun sapped sanity and sent the unfortunate border-crossers stumbling into the washes to die. Still they came, to pick watermelons, to clean houses. And still, they died.

�What is it?� Teo trotted up, his face alive with curiosity. �A dead one?� Then his face froze, turning in an instant to a carved mask, the color of the tinaja they had visited. With a cry, he scrambled over the bed of the truck, grabbing at a dusty daypack propped against the side of the bed.

�Hey!� Jamison burst from the cab. �Get your hands off, kid!�

But Teo ignored him, babbling incoherently in Spanish, now fumbling with the zipper of the bag. Jeremiah grabbed him, swung him kicking and struggling out of the truck, grappling with the boy�s wiry strength. �Knock it off, Teo! What�s wrong with you?�

�Ramon. It is his. His pack.� Teo finally managed to get the words out in English.

�I thought he was in L.A.� Jeremiah kept his grip on Teo. �Maybe it just looks like his.� He looked at Jamison. �Any ID or anything?�

�Nothing but a few clothes.� Jamison shrugged, his expression faintly curious. �Who did you think this belonged to, kid?�

�His uncle.� Jeremiah answered for Teo. �He left for Los Angeles five days ago.� He looked at Teo, then at Jamison. �Maybe we better look.�

Jamison hesitated, shrugged, then reached for the zipper, giving them both one last doubtful glance.

Better to see a man dead from thirst than to imagine Ramon in that bag. Besides, Jeremiah had heard the story of Teo�s arrival in this country. He nodded at the deputy, who shrugged and pulled the zipper down.

Teo cried out � a raw, wordless sound. �Close it,� Jeremiah snapped. He turned Teo�s rigid body to face him. Teo resisted for a moment, then stood slack in Jeremiah�s hands, staring down at the ground.

�This isn�t an illegal.� Jeremiah met the deputy�s sceptical gaze above the boy�s head. �Ramon Montoya is a citizen. He�s the foreman at Robeson�s ranch.�

�Oh, him.� The deputy shoved his hat back on his head and scratched his scalp, looking faintly uncomfortable. �He must have taken a wrong turn this time. Everyone knows he�s a coyote...�

�No!� Eyes blazing, Teo leaned against Jeremiah�s grip. �He finds people out here, he shows them where to go, to find water. He does not take money. He does not...�

�Teo. Enough.� Jeremiah kept his arm around the boy as he strained against it, his fists clenched, face mottled with unshed tears. �He wouldn�t get lost and die out here. Not Ramon,� Jeremiah said. �He knows where the water is. This is something else.�

The deputy shrugged again and sighed. �I only know what I see.� He looked from Teo to Jeremiah. �You want to ride back?�

Jeremiah nodded. �We�ll get our gear.� He went back for their packs, followed by the silent Teo. The boy gathered his sleeping pad, his eyes black holes into an unreadable void. Jeremiah put the food and water jugs back into their cache at the ocotillo�s foot. He left the water jugs visible. He always did. He had many caches. If the water here was gone next trip, the person who had taken it had more need of it than he.

The sun had vanished, and night seemed to flow up from the rocks and crevices in the ground. The sky blazed with stars, their fires undimmed by moisture or clouds. Squeezed between them in the pickup�s cab, Teo stared out into the yellow splash of light across the rocks, his body swaying to the jolting progress of the pickup.

�When Ramon left, did he say anything about meeting anyone?� Jeremiah asked as they reached the faint jeep track that wound east, toward the town of Sweetwater. Teo shook his head, said nothing. �There�s my truck,� Jeremiah said. He spoke to the deputy, pointing to where he�d parked it in a small stand of juniper. He�d left water there, too, in the bed, where anyone who found it would not need to break a window to take it. The jugs were there, still blood-warm to the touch, still full. �I�ll take Teo home, and tell Ramon�s mother.�

�Sure.� Jamison sounded relieved. �I appreciate it, thanks.� The pickup with its dark burden disappeared down the track, its tail-lights glowing like embers through the haze of dust, dwindling quickly.

The deputy did not want this to be a murder.

Jeremiah tossed their packs into the truck bed and started the engine as the still-silent Teo scrambled into the front seat. Jeremiah put his hand on the shift lever, but didn�t put the truck into gear. �He wouldn�t have died of thirst there,� he said. He was less than a day�s walk from water. �They�ll do an autopsy, find out how he died.�

Teo gave no sign that he had heard a single word.

�Who would want to kill Ramon, Teo?�

The boy�s body flinched, as if Jeremiah had jabbed him with a stick. �No s�,� he whispered.

Jeremiah reached over and put a hand on his shoulder, gripped hard. Ramon had told him how Teo�s parents had died in a coyote�s locked and abandoned van with six other illegals. Only the infant Teo had survived. A miracle, Ramon had told him. Jeremiah put the truck into gear and bumped back up to the jeep track, turning eastward, toward town. They skirted the main street and small scatter of residential homes, turning off to the north, following another jeep track through scrubby rangeland to the piece of land that Ramon was buying from his boss, Wallace Robeson. An antelope crossed in front of them, eyes reflecting greenly as the headlights froze it, then vanishing into the darkness with a flash of brown and white. The driveway to Ramon�s house was marked by a battered mailbox on a cottonwood post anchored in a heap of rock. The house itself was small, some homesteader�s hand-built effort. Sun had silvered the warped boards and rusty sheet metal roofed it.

Before they had even reached the house, a dark shape moved on the rickety porch that shaded the south-facing door. Teo�s grandmother, Ramon�s mother. His mouth suddenly drier than the desert could make it, Jeremiah killed the engine. Teo was already climbing out, moving slowly, as if something might break if he hurried. He walked over to the small, straight woman in the faded dress, speaking softly, his voice trembling. The old woman raised her head, her eyes unreadable in her weathered face, veiled in shadows. Then she covered her face with hands curved like claws, and the sound of grief she made raised the hairs on Jeremiah�s neck.

Teo took her arm, and with an ageless maturity led her back into the dark house. Neither of them turned to look at Jeremiah.

Jeremiah turned the truck around and retraced his path toward town. He had rented a room by the month at the grimy little motel in the center of town, but the thought of sleeping indoors tonight in the stuffy room that smelled of cigarettes and old sex nauseated him. He turned onto the main street and pulled around the bulk of the tiny City Hall to park outside the sheet-metal and brick entrance with the fading sign: Sheriff�s Department. Light seeped through the grimy glass and bars of the single window. Someone peered through the peephole when he knocked on the door. Jeremiah waited, and it finally swung open.

�I figured I was gonna hear from you.� Deputy Jamison stood aside as Jeremiah entered. An inner door, handleless, formed a sort of air lock into the three rooms that formed the sheriff�s office and jail. The two barred cells were empty, the metal bunks bare. A mouse skittered across the concrete floor and vanished behind one of the seatless johns in the cells. Concrete-block walls sweated musty humidity, and the air was thick and stale.

�Coffee?� Jamison hefted a pot, a mug in his other hand.

Jeremiah nodded, accepted the chipped dimestore mug with the permanent stain around its inner rim.

�We�ll send the body to the M.E. in the morning.� Jamison tilted back in his chair, his eyes on a faded rodeo calendar on the wall. �He sure looks like somebody who died of thirst to me. I seen enough of �em. How many days did the kid say he�d been gone?�

�Five.� Jeremiah sat down in the single straight chair opposite the desk, eyes on the wisps of steam curling from the mug.

�M.E.�s gonna find out he died of thirst. Bet you ten.� Jamison�s voice was lazy, but his eyes flicked sideways toward Jeremiah, quick as a lizard scuttling across a hot rock.

Jeremiah nodded and picked up his mug. �He might. You know, if you hadn�t run into Teo and me, what would�ve happened? Just another poor sucker trying to cross.�

�You�re sayin� something kind of ugly here.�

�I guess.� Jeremiah smelled the burned bitterness of the coffee, set it back on the desk untouched. �Who doesn�t like Ramon?�

�Good question.� Jamison shrugged, frowning, his eyes thoughtful. �I called Robeson, his boss. According to him, he�s a real gem of a foreman. Hell, he told me he sold some land to him.�

It wasn�t land Wallace Robeson cared much about, Jeremiah guessed, rocky and poor range. But Ramon had known there was water there and Robeson didn�t.

�His mother was housekeeper for Robeson�s dad. She took care of the old man after he had his stroke, up until he died.� Jamison pulled a crumpled pack of Marlboros from his shirt pocket, shook one out. �Ramon didn�t come out here until she took in the baby. He was in California. Maybe this has got to do with California.�

�Seen any strangers around lately?� Jeremiah drawled. �That was a long time ago.�

�Some things last a long time.� Jamison exhaled a drifting cloud. �I can�t believe those damn college kids out there. Jeeze, don�t they grow brains anymore? Maybe they figure because it�s a wildlife refuge it�s like a big park. With running water and campsites. Idiots.� He dragged on his cigarette, scowling. �If they don�t die of thirst, some crosser will knife �em for their hundred-dollar hiking boots.�

Unlikely, Jeremiah thought. The time somebody broke a window in his truck, all they had taken was the water jug. They�d left the expensive digital camera on the floor of the cab, undisturbed. He hoped they had made it through. Tired clear to his bones suddenly, Jeremiah got to his feet. �Thanks for the coffee.� He carried the cup to the small grimy sink, dumped it out, and rinsed it.

�I�ll let you know what I find out,� Jamison said, propping both boot heels on the desk in front of him.

Jeremiah let himself out. The lights were off in the motel down the street. He fingered his room key, then got into his truck and drove down Main Street and away from town. When he was far enough out, he left the truck near a lone saguaro and hiked out onto the bajada with his bedroll and pack. The moon gleamed like a silvery sickle, razor-edged, and the ancient paths worn in the sand converged in the distance, leading to water, to life.

Ellery found his father standing outside the David Brothers mansion on the East River. It had been raining since morning and Ellery had to splash through puddles on the driveway before he could join the Inspector under the porte-cochere.

�Was this trip necessary?� grumbled Ellery, shaking the rain from his hat. �And if so, why couldn�t the taxi deposit me decently under the roof?� The protected part of the driveway was roped off.

�Tire tracks,� said Inspector Queen. �I thought you�d want to sit in on this, Ellery. It�s murder, it�s nasty, and... I don�t know.�

Ellery perked up and looked at the tire marks. �Who, how, when, why, and so forth?�

�Mrs. Daisy Brothers, ex-club stripper. Stabbed to death between two and three this P.M. by one of her three brothers-in-law. I�ve got the whole story from her lawyer.� And the Inspector told Ellery of the Four Brothers Mining Company board meeting of the previous week and Big Dave�s widow�s stock coup. �So I guess they found she was right when she told them they�d be wasting their time and money trying to beat her in court � and as a result she�s lying in there in her library, still with the three certified checks, the deadest dame you ever saw. She was alone in the house � she�d given up all her servants when her husband died and she�s been living here ever since like a hermit, doing her own work.�

�What about these tire marks?�

�Three cars rolled up here one at a time,� said Inspector Queen with a sigh. �The marks identify the cars as a Cadillac, a Rolls-Royce, and a Chevrolet � and from the overlapping of the treads, they came in that order. The Caddy is a �fifty-one town car belonging to the finance company � I mean Charlton Brothers; the Rolls is a secondhand job Everett Brothers picked up cheap in London last year; the Chevy is what Archibald Brothers runs around in when he�s calling on his girlfriends or otherwise doesn�t want to be noticed by some vulgar columnist.

�I�ve sweated the three gents and they�ve admitted coming here between two and three today, separately and alone, about fifteen-twenty minutes apart.�

�And their stories are?� murmured Ellery.

�Identical. It�s collusion, of course; they were all ready for me. They probably drew lots, and the brother who got tagged for the party is being covered up by the other two. Each one says she was already dead when he got here, and that he got scared and ran.�

�They�d have to say that,� said Ellery reflectively, �otherwise how would they account for their stocks not having been turned over to her? Let�s have a look at the lady.�

Big Dave�s widow was a mess. Whichever brother had stabbed her with the hunting-knife letter opener from Big Dave�s desk, he had wielded it with passion and without finesse, many times.

�But,� as the Inspector remarked, �he wasn�t out for a medal in technique. The things people do for money!�

�What�s this?� Ellery had picked up a man�s raincoat with the eraser end of a pencil. The raincoat was slightly damp, the lower part of the right sleeve was rain-soaked, and the front of the coat was smeared untidily and redly. It was of medium size, not new.

�We found it rolled up under that leather chair,� said the Inspector. �She fought for her life and he got her blood all over his coat. Rather than risk being caught or even seen with the coat in this condition, he left it here.�

�A bad mistake,� said Ellery.

�You think so? You won�t find any identifying marks, the pockets were cleaned out even of lint and dust, all three brothers owned raincoats like this at one time or other, and they all wear a medium size. Each one denies it�s his coat, and each one says he can�t produce his own coat because he discarded it long ago. So we don�t get at him through elimination.�

�There are other ways,� remarked Ellery.

�Yes,� said his father with a shrug, �we�ll do a sweat, hair, and dust analysis, but they�re not always conclusive. I have a hunch, son, we won�t get any more out of the coat than we did out of the knife, which doesn�t show a print.�

�I disagree.�

�You see something I missed?� exclaimed Inspector Queen. �In the coat?�

�Yes, Dad. Something that indicates exactly which brother killed Big Dave�s widow. And with nothing up my sleeve,� said Ellery with a grin, �although with something definitely up his.

�Look at this coat. It�s slightly damp from the rain, but the lower part of the right sleeve is rain-soaked. How did that part of the sleeve get soaked while the rest of the sleeve � in fact, the rest of the coat � merely got a little damp?

�The brothers came here separately, at different times, each alone in his car. It�s rained all day. So the wearer of this coat drove a car in the rain. In driving a car in the rain, especially in city traffic, what do you habitually do which will get one of your coat sleeves wet?�

�Give arm signals for stops and turns...!� But then Inspector Queen looked puzzled. �But the driver always signals with his left arm, Ellery, and it�s the right sleeve of this coat that�s rain-soaked.�

�Conclusion: This driver signaled with his right arm.�

�But to be able to do that�� The Inspector stopped. Then he said, slowly, �His car has a right-hand drive.�

�Charlton�s Cadillac and Archibald�s Chevrolet � American cars � left-hand drives,� said Ellery, nodding. �But the other car is a Rolls-Royce � British; and what�s more, a Rolls bought secondhand in London, so it has to have a right-hand drive. Indicating the owner of the Rolls � Everett Brothers.

�By the way, Dad, what�s he look like?�

New York writer Tom Tolnay says his first love in fiction is the short story. He has published several crime-related stories with EQMM over the years, and produces non-genre stories for other national magazines. In 2001, he took first place in Literal Latt�s national short story contest with �The Ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald.� The story has since been made into a short film by Sea Lion Productions; the company plans to show it at film festivals this year.

Around 9:45 A.M. squadrons of automobiles began rolling into the acres of fresh-tarred parking lots that surrounded the Carousel Shopping Mall, the construction of which had been completed in the fall on a filled-in marsh near a confluence of three highways. By 9:50, the first wave of shoppers stood out in the frosty air, shivering, peering through the green-tinted, impenetrable glass doors. Just barely they could see vendors lined up along the tubelike tunnels, setting up trays of sugar-coated peanuts, salty pretzels, donuts with fifty kinds of fillings (one for each state in the Union), bags of buttered popcorn, gumdrops, and chocolates sold by the pound. Collectively the vendors served as a kind of buffer zone to slow down the army of shoppers that stormed the Carousel each morning.

By 9:55 many more automobiles were pulling up between the yellow-painted lines, and the swelling crowds at the entrances were stirring impatiently, quoting out loud prices of sale items they had seen on television and in newspapers.�High above each door was a weatherproof pivoting camera with a cyclopean glass eye that was continually feeding images of them to a windowless compound in the subbasement. Here dozens of video screens were monitored twenty-four hours a day by a rotating shift of security guards in dark blue uniforms and billed caps.

Above ground, the Carousel consisted of a massive rotunda with three floors that surrounded a spacious service area. All shops on each level radiated out from this center, and the front of each was restricted to the same width. This placed shops on relatively equal competitive footing, according to the developers, and gave each the appearance of being small enough to be friendly and unique, like a family-owned hometown store. (Every one of the shops, in fact, was part of an international retail conglomerate, with headquarters located far away, often in Japan or Germany.)

At precisely 10:00 A.M. the six doorways spaced evenly around the Carousel sprang open through the magic of an electronic timer. Shoppers swarmed onto the entrance ramps. While a few stopped at the snack vendors, most continued down into the tunnels. Along the walls, digitally-programmed advertising signs were flashing and passionate music was blaring from unseen speakers. Many of the children bounded ahead of their mothers, fathers, older siblings, grandparents. Several mothers called out to their fleeing offspring, Meet me at Burger King at noon! I�ll catch up to you at The Disney Store! Don�t spend all your allowance on video games!... The kids didn�t look back, swiftly melting into the milieu of the mall.

Secretly the parents were glad. With the kids on their own they would be able to stroll around their favorite shops without constantly being nagged to buy a breast-feeding doll that produced �real� mother�s milk or a laser gun that gave off �real� low-voltage shocks. Besides, they knew their children would be safe in the Carousel � if not here, then where could they be safe, the way things were going? Even out here in the suburbs, some school-children were wearing bullet-proof vests beneath their sweaters to protect themselves against classmates who hid revolvers under their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in cartoon-imprinted lunchboxes. And deadly stabbings were being committed on street corners over outrageously priced designer sunglasses.

Since publication of our double issue falls in the month of Halloween, we sometimes include in the issues additional pages a few short pieces that fall slightly outside the mystery genre but contain mysterious elements of a ghostly sort. Such is David. Dean�s new tale �Spooky.� Set, in part, on Halloween, it�s a story that will spook even those who prefer a materialistic interpretation of its events.

It was in the year after his wife�s death that his daughter insisted on giving him the dog. Angelina had rescued the animal from the pound after spotting it there with her kindergarten class on a field trip, and was irrevocably convinced that this was �his� dog.

He had tried to argue, but �Angel,� as his wife and he had always called their only child, had years of dealing with such unreasonable objections from her young students and easily prevailed in his case. His lack of experience, and the fact that he had never owned a pet, was rendered moot by the simultaneous presentation of a book on the care and handling of small breeds.

�Daddy, it�s all in here,� she said, tapping the cover of the book, which featured a perky Highland Terrier; very unlike the creature that cowered silently under the coffee table. �You�re an intelligent man, and this will present very little challenge for you... besides, a little challenge might be good for you right now,� she intoned sagely, peering over her glasses at him, the book bobbing up and down in her hand.

�But I don�t want a dog!� He dared to insist. �I don�t like them!�

�Nonsense! How would you know? You told me yourself that you�ve never had one,� she answered patiently as she stood expectantly over his supine form in the recliner. The book stopped bobbing.

Looking up at this matronly woman with her half-moon glasses, it was hard for him to remember the little person who had so delighted his wife and him as a child. �Dammit,� he muttered, wondering if he would get detention for cursing... and took the book.

�You won�t be sorry, Daddy,� Angel gushed triumphantly. �She�ll liven up the house and be just the best company for you!�

�She...?� he whined uneasily.

�Oh, it�s all right, she�s already spayed so you don�t have to worry about her going into heat.�

The old man winced at his daughter�s casual use of such a crude term.

Angel knelt down to pet the dog on her way to the door and William saw the dog flinch, but submit stoically nonetheless, to a few strokes of its hard-looking skull. Perhaps we do have something in common, he thought meanly.

�I put plenty of dog food out in the garage,� Angel announced with her sweeping exit. �She�s had all her shots, and her vaccination record is on the counter. Put that in a safe place. You�ll need it for any trips to the vet�s. As to potty training...� She halted in the door to intone this last. �She�s a mature dog, so she�s probably been housebroken, but you�d better get in the habit of a few walks a day with her to make sure... I left a leash on the counter in the kitchen!� The door closed and she was gone.

In the ringing silence following her exit, man and dog stared off into separate spaces without movement. From time to time, William would glance over at the dog in her shadowed retreat beneath the table and find the small animal regarding him solemnly, and each time her eyes would cut nervously away. She made no sound or movement.

�I�ve no use for a dog,� William announced impotently to the room. �I�m enjoying my solitude.�

As if in answer, the mongrel sighed heavily within her sanctum and William turned to see that she had closed her eyes and lay with her head on her paws, composed for sleep.

�Well,� he declared softly, convinced by her demeanor that she was no happier than he about the arrangement, �maybe it�ll work out.�

Benedict Arnold figures so frequently as an antagonist in the cases of Edward D. Hoch�s Revolutionary War era sleuth Alexander Swift that he�s beginning to take on the character of Swift�s nemesis. In real life, Arnold�s role in the Revolutionary War was more complicated; prior to his treachery he fought heroically for the American side in several crucial battles. We probably haven�t seen the last of Arnold�s entanglements with the clever Swift...

During George Washington�s second term as President of the United States, it was not uncommon for Alexander Swift to visit him at Mount Vernon. The plantation, situated atop a hill overlooking the Potomac River, was always a lively place. On this sunny afternoon in late October of 1793, he found the President on the second floor of his round barn where horses sometimes walked in circles, threshing wheat.

�Isn�t it a bit late in the season for threshing, Mr. President?� he asked.

�Alex! How good it is to see you! Stay by the stairs. I�m coming right down.� When they reached the barn�s main floor, he answered Swift�s question. �The threshing season is over, but there is always the cleanup in preparation for winter. Tell me, how goes progress on the Patowmack Canal?�

In the years following the Revolution, Washington had become president of the Potomac Navigation Company, hiring Swift as one of his assistants. After his election to the highest office in the new nation, Washington had resigned from the canal company, but�Swift stayed on. He lived with his wife Molly and their eight-year-old son in Maryland. President Washington still took an interest in the canal company and asked about its progress whenever they were together.

�Progress is slow,� he admitted, �but we�re coming along.�

�Will I live to see it completed?�

�I don�t know that either of us will,� Swift answered with a smile. �But we�re certainly trying. I hope our new capital in the District of Columbia is finished sooner than the canal.�

�I hope so, too. I laid the cornerstone for the Capitol building on a sunny day a few weeks ago, but the President�s House still has only a foundation. I will never live there.�

�If you are elected to a third term...�

Washington held up his hand. �No, no! Tell me, how are Molly and George?�

�Fine, sir, both of them.� Washington had been especially pleased when they named their son after him.

The President turned serious as they walked toward the house. �I have summoned you here on an important matter.�

�Not Benedict Arnold again?�

�Not directly, though there may be some connection. He�s back in London with his family, and not faring too well, from what I hear. There is, at the moment, a much more immediate problem. I�m sure you are aware of what is happening in Philadelphia.�

�The plague of yellow fever! The newspaper accounts are terrible.�

Washington nodded. �It started among the sailors and grog sellers on the waterfront back in August. Poor Hamilton almost died of it, and many in the government are stricken. When I agreed to move the capital from New York to Philadelphia, I never dreamed of anything like this happening. I left the city as planned on September tenth, to spend time here until Congress reconvenes on December second. Now I am seriously considering moving the session to Germantown or some other location. Alex, we have nearly five thousand known dead in a city of fifty-five thousand. And they died a horrible death, with that yellowish skin color and black vomit. I saw many of them myself before I came here in September.�

They�d entered the big house and Martha Washington greeted Swift warmly. She was a small woman, barely five feet tall, with dark hair and a gentle manner. �It is good to see you again, Alex,� she said, inquiring about his wife and son.

�Patsy,� Washington asked, for that was what he called her, �could Joshua bring us some tea on the back porch?�

�I�ll see to it at once.�

Seated next to the President in one of the rocking chairs overlooking the Potomac, Swift felt at peace with the world. He knew, however, that the President had summoned him for a serious purpose. �I want to help however I can, sir, but of course I am not a medical man. I know nothing of the disease or how it is spread.�

�Nor does anyone else, although there is a feeling that the French colonists who fled Haiti in late July might have brought it with them to our shores. Certainly it has been a bad summer in our nation�s capital. Philadelphia has been hotter, drier, and dustier than anyone can remember, with an amazing number of flies and mosquitos adding to the discomfort. Only now is there some relief with the coming of a light frost, but still the death toll from the fever climbs.� He was silent for a moment, and then added, �One of our Pennsylvania congressmen died of it just two weeks ago.�

�Who would that be?�

�Clayton Emory. Did you know him?�

�I don�t believe so.�

Washington sighed. �Here is the problem, Swift, and what I am about to tell you must go no further.�

�Certainly not.�

�Emory was fifty-eight years old and a widower. He lived alone in a small row house that was filled with papers from his military service and from various positions he held in the colonial government. Last week, when members of his family started to clean the house out, they made a surprising discovery in one of the boxes � a large quantity of British currency, all in five-pound notes drawn on the Bank of England.�

�How much is a large quantity?�

�Seventy-eight envelopes of one hundred notes each. Thirty-nine thousand pounds in all.�

�That�s a great deal of money.�

�A small fortune,� Washington agreed. �I take only twenty-five thousand dollars a year, hardly enough for the expenses incurred while serving as President. That is a bit over six thousand pounds. The money hidden in Emory�s house is more than I will collect during my first six years in office.�

�Are these banknotes still legal currency?�

�They are in England.�

�Where did they come from?� Swift asked, taking a sip of tea.

�I want you to find out. The family notified the Treasury Department of their find, and with Hamilton still in a weakened condition I was contacted directly by post.�

�You mentioned this might involve Benedict Arnold indirectly. What did you mean by that?�

Washington closed his eyes for a moment, then said, �Before West Point, when Arnold was still military governor of Philadelphia, Emory served under him. I ask myself if it is possible Emory, too, was a traitor, receiving money from Arnold.�

Swift sat up straighter in his chair. �Do you believe that?�

�No, not really. But I want you to find a better explanation for me. What was he doing with all that hidden British currency, twelve years after the war ended?�

Each day in the library hallways dank

Lurked Natalie, morn and night.

She complained to Frank that his dinners stank,

And that husbands do nothing right.