Mystery: The Best of 2001 Read online

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  Jon L. Breen

  THE SAN AGUSTIN MIRACLE

  Edward D. Hoch

  EVIL GROWS

  Loren D. Estleman

  THE ONLY GOOD JUDGE

  Carolyn Wheat

  THE WINK

  Ruth Rendell

  BRIDAL FLOWERS

  Dorothy Cannell

  THE HONORED GUEST

  Marianne Wilski Strong

  OPEN AND SHUT

  Benjamin M. Schutz

  OH, MONA

  Dan A. Sproul

  TOMORROW’S VILLAIN

  Mat Coward

  HONEYDEW WINE

  James Powell

  THE HOLLOW WOMAN

  Laura Philpot Benedict

  MISSING, PRESUMED . . .

  Dana Stabenow

  MISS TIDWELL TAKES NO PRISONERS

  Joan Hess

  WHISTLE

  David Dean

  JUSTICE KNOWS NO PAWS

  Jon L. Breen

  Mystery

  The Best of 2001

  Copyright © 2002 by ibooks, Inc.

  Introduction copyright © 2002 by Jon L. Breen “The San Agustin Miracle” copyright © 2000, 2002 by Edward D. Hoch “Evil Grows” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Loren D. Estleman “The Only Good Judge” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Carolyn Wheat “The Wink” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Ruth Rendell “Bridal Flowers” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Dorothy Cannell “The Honored Guest” copyright © 2000, 2002 by Marianne Wilski Strong “Open and Shut” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Benjamin M. Schutz “Oh, Mona” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Dan A. Sproul “Tomorrow’s Villain” copyright © 1999, 2002 by Mat Coward “Honeydew Wine” copyright © 2001, 2002 by James Powell “The Hollow Woman” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Laura Philpot Benedict “Missing, Presumed…” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Dana Stabenow “Miss Tidwell Takes No Prisoners” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Joan Hess “Whistle” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Davd Dean “Justice Knows No Paws” copyright © 2001, 2002 by Jon L. Breen

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  MYSTERY

  THE BEST OF 2001

  AN INTRODUCTION

  by Jon L. Breen

  Irony is one of the sharpest arrows in the short-story writer’s quiver—and the continued good health of the mystery short story is an irony in itself. Fifty to a hundred years ago, novelists used lucrative magazine sales to support book-length works that were more rewarding in prestige but less so in negotiable currency. In more recent decades, with the high-paying slick magazine fiction markets down to a handful, the high-volume pulps gone altogether, and the prestigious digests down to two (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine), the real money has increasingly been in novels, longer and longer novels.

  Therefore, one might conclude, the short story, surely as the Broadway theatre, must be either dead or dying. But if so, why do most of the major writers of mystery fiction continue to produce at least occasional short stories? Here are some reasons.

  • They offer different challenges, engage different authorial muscles.

  • They offer more artistic freedom, demanding less obeisance to commerce.

  • They don’t take as long to write.

  • They serve an advertising function, as samples to entice readers to try the longer works.

  • Finally, and possibly most important, short stories done really well can have a more powerful impact than a five-hundred-page blockbuster.

  Is there an ideal length for the crime or mystery story? Maybe not. But Edgar Allan Poe invented the tale of detection and Arthur Conan Doyle did the most to popularize it in short stories. Even when novels became predominant, writers from Dorothy L. Sayers to Dashiell Hammett continued to produce some of their best work in the shorter form. And few crime novels have made the indelible imprint on their readers’ memories of Agatha Christie’s “The Witness for the Prosecution" or Stanley Ellin’s “The Specialty of the House" or Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter."

  Every kind of crime or mystery story, from pure puzzle to private eye to police procedural to confidence game to psychological suspense to legal conundrum, can be done as effectively in short story as novel length. For evidence, I offer the stories in this collection. They range in mood from grim and terrifying to light and satirical; in locale from contemporary Alaska to Territorial Arizona, London to Miami, big-city America to an English village. In short, I believe they will give more distilled mysterious pleasure than a stack of novels.

  Edward D. Hoch

  “The San Agustin Miracle”

  In any given year, short-story specialist Edward D. Hoch probably turns out more scrupulously fair detective puzzles than any dozen novelists. A mainstay of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine since the 1960s, he has appeared in every issue beginning with May 1973. One of his many series characters is Western drifter Ben Snow, who encounters here a Hoch specialty: a seemingly impossible crime.

  You still hear occasional stories about the miracle at the San Agustin Mission on that September afternoon in 1899, and Ben Snow was there to see it happen. He’d spent most of the year in the Arizona Territory, earning money at odd jobs, and had finally drifted south to Tucson. A city of about 7,500 residents, it was located on the often-dry Santa Cruz River. Tucson had begun life as a military garrison under Spanish and Mexican rule, and even with the arrival of the railroad and settlers from the east it remained more than half Mexican as the century was ending.

  There was copper mining in the hills, but it was also cotton country, which surprised Ben. Even more surprising was Jud Withers, a leathery-skinned man in his fifties who’d been a Confederate soldier thirty-five years earlier. He was the first man Ben met when he rode into town, and he had a story to tell over a beer at a local saloon with the unlikely name of Custer’s Café.

  “Bet you never knew that Confederate troops occupied Tucson back in sixty-two, did you?” he asked Ben, obviously launching into a favorite and familiar story. “It was the cotton that brought us, of course. The Union wanted to keep slaves out of the new states and territories, and we rode across the desert from west Texas to seize the area. I do believe this was the furthest west the Confederate Army ever got.”

  “How long were you here?” Ben asked, sipping his beer. He’d spent half his lifetime listening to stories in bars.

  “Well, not long,” Jud Withers admitted. “But I wasn’t driven out like the rest of ’em. Married me a sweet young Injun gal and settled down here. She’s dead now, but I’m still hanging on. I’ll see the twentieth century if I’m lucky.”

  Ben signaled the barkeep for a refill and tossed a silver dollar on the polished wood. “Any jobs around here?”

  “In the cotton fields?”

  “I was thinking more of ranching. How’s the weather been?”

  “Well, we just finished our rainy season. Everything’s growing nice.” Eyeing Ben’s gunbelt he asked, “You from around here?”

  “I’ve been up north, riding the circuit with Judge Hark. Sort of a bodyguard job.”

  “Don’t have too much call for bodyguards. Things are pretty peaceful around here.”

  “I can do cowhand chores. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “You don’t want to be in one place. You’re a traveling man. I can see that. There’s a Mexican coming up this way in a few days wit
h a hot-air balloon. He gives exhibitions. He might need somebody to travel with him, handle his gear.”

  Ben was skeptical. “A balloon?”

  “The Mex is really good, I hear tell. Pancho Quizas is his name. He and his wife have been working the border towns, and this time of year they come a bit farther north. They used to have somebody with them, but they’re traveling alone now.”

  Ben Snow had seen fliers, men with wings strapped to their bodies, launching themselves from a cliff or high platform, relying on air currents to carry their wings of cloth some distance before depositing them gently on the ground. He’d watched one of them in Texas a few years back. The man had been killed while flying, but that was another story. A balloon was something else, and it might be worth a look.

  A young woman at the back of the room had mounted a small stage and was strumming a guitar. Ben left the bar and walked back in that direction. He expected she might sing something by Stephen Foster, or perhaps one of the Civil War songs still popular in the region, but instead she seemed to be reciting poetry to the guitar accompaniment. Ben listened to one about a cactus flower, and when she ended to a smattering of applause he asked her who wrote it.

  “I did,” she replied softly, and Ben took a closer look at her. She was maybe in her late twenties, a decade or so younger than him, with long silky hair the color of sand. She was dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, with a sombrero hanging at the back of her neck.

  “Do you write much poetry like that?”

  She blushed a bit. “It’s meant to be a song, but I’m not too good at blending the words and music yet.”

  “You have a nice voice. You should put the sombrero out for tips.”

  “Thank you.” She went back to strumming her guitar, making no effort to remove the hat from her neck.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Gert.”

  “Fellow at the bar was just telling me about a Mexican who flies in a balloon.”

  “Sure, that’s Pancho Quizas. I met him once, down south. He’ll be here any day now, maybe tomorrow.”

  “I’d like to meet him. Could you introduce us?”

  “Sure could, if I knew your name.”

  “It’s Ben. Ben Snow.”

  “Familiar kind of name. You from around these parts?”

  “Off and on.”

  “Where can I find you, when Pancho shows up?”

  “I’ll be around. Any good card players in this town?”

  “You were just talkin’ to the best of them. Jud Withers.”

  Ben glanced around at the old Confederate. “Thanks,” he said and moved away.

  Withers told him there’d be no card game that night but to come back the next night, which was Saturday. Ben found a room he could rent over the stable where he’d boarded Oats, and decided to sleep there until the Mexican showed up. The following evening after supper he stopped in Custer’s Café and found a game already in progress. Jud Withers spotted him at once and waved him over to the table.

  “Got a place all saved for you, Ben. Sit right here.”

  He slid into the wooden armchair and nodded greetings to the other three men at the table. All were younger than Jud Withers and at least one, seated with his back to the wall, had the look of a gunfighter with his black shirt and matching gunbelt. Ben felt like telling him his time had passed, that the West was getting civilized now, but if he said it the kid probably would have drawn on him. His name was Scooter Colt and he didn’t offer to shake hands after Withers introduced them.

  The other two were a Mexican named Sanchez and a well-dressed cotton farmer named Edgar Blaise. There was a sixth chair at the table and Ben was surprised when the poetic guitar player named Gert appeared from the back of the room to claim it. “I like poker,” she told Ben as she sat down.

  Withers brought out a new deck of cards and they started a game of stud poker. Gert seemed more at ease with the cards than with her guitar, and before long she was ahead. Scooter Colt’s eyes were on her, especially when she dealt. Ben couldn’t decide whether he was guarding against cheating or merely admiring her breasts.

  They’d been playing for about an hour when the doors of Custer’s Café swung open to allow the entry of a tall Mexican with a goatee, carrying a tattered carpetbag. Jud Withers immediately stopped the game with a wave of his hand. “Pancho! We’ve been expecting you.”

  In his black suit and string tie Pancho Quizas looked more like a mortician than a flying man. He appeared to carry no weapon, though Ben couldn’t be certain a derringer wasn’t concealed in his breast pocket. When he smiled, a gold tooth sparkled. “It took longer than expected with the balloon,” the Mexican explained in slightly accented English. “Elana is still a few miles out of town with the wagon.”

  “Want to sit in for a few hands?” the Confederate asked.

  “Perhaps later.”

  Ben dropped out of the hand and followed Pancho over to the bar. After introducing himself, he said, “Withers told me you might be interested in someone to handle your gear.”

  “Sí. It is difficult for my wife. Tonight, handling the wagon, she is tired. But she insists I come ahead to arrange for lodgings.”

  “If you hire me I’ll ride out now and meet her. Did you come from the border?”

  Pancho Quizas nodded. “Nogales.”

  “I know that trail. I’ll meet her and help with the wagon.”

  “I would be grateful, Ben Snow.”

  “Just Ben is good enough. We’ll talk about money when I get back.”

  He retrieved Oats from the stable, saddled up, and took the road south. About fifteen minutes out of town he spotted the wagon’s lanterns and slowed Oats to a trot. The two horses pulling the wagon had run out of energy, leaving the frustrated woman yanking uselessly at the reins. Ben could barely see her in the dim lantern glow, but he quickly identified himself to calm her fears.

  “Your husband sent me out to help you. This is quite a load you’re hauling.”

  “It shifted after he rode off. I think one of the ropes broke. I couldn’t fix it in the dark.”

  Ben dismounted and took the nearest lantern, going back to inspect the wagon’s cargo. The balloon itself was deflated into a pile of limp fabric, but there was also a large wicker bucket and a heater of some sort, all of which added weight to the wagon. He took a rope from his saddle and pulled the bucket into place, securing it as best he could. Then he tied Oats’s reins to the wagon and climbed up next to the woman. “That’s a little better. Let me see if I can get these horses moving now.”

  “Thank you,” she said, gladly handing over the reins. “I’m Elana, Pancho’s wife.”

  “Ben Snow. I need a job and I’m hoping your husband will take me on.”

  “The people pay to see him fly. We lead a precarious existence.” She sounded more educated than her husband did and he wondered how they’d ever gotten together. “But I’m sure he’ll pay you for helping me tonight, at least.”

  “Will he fly tomorrow?”

  “If the winds are not too strong.”

  Pancho Quizas was waiting when the wagon pulled up. “You are a good man, Ben Snow,” he ventured after Elana told him how their cargo almost came loose. “Help me fly tomorrow and I will pay you ten silver dollars.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Ben finished the evening in the poker game, his confidence renewed, and won sixteen dollars.

  The hot, calm morning seemed perfect for Pancho’s balloon ascent. “I will go up at two this afternoon,” he announced, “at the Mission San Agustin.”

  A crowd of townspeople came out to watch, and Elana dutifully collected a small fee from each one. They stood in front of the mission church, a few miles outside the city, paying little attention to the dust devils—harmless whirlwinds of air made visible by the dust and sand they raised from the ground. Ben had seen them many times before in dry regions, especially when the temperature was high and the wind was calm, and he knew that some superstit
ious people viewed them as the devil come to collect the souls of the dead.

  Ben worked with Pancho, positioning the basket, laying out the balloon, and igniting the brazier of wood and coal used to inflate it. Through the thick cloth fabric Ben noticed a shape approaching them. It proved to be an elderly priest who’d come out of the mission church to observe their progress. “I am Padre Paul,” he told them. “Do you plan an ascent this afternoon?”

  “I do, Padre,” Pancho Quizas told him. “It is a perfect day.”

  “The Lord’s day,” the priest replied. “And you have brought dust devils with you.”

  “Have no fear, Padre,” Pancho told him with a grin, and his gold tooth caught the afternoon sun. “We will rise above them.”

  The old priest turned his weathered face toward the clear blue sky. “Sometimes one cannot go high enough to escape the devil.”

  As the balloon began to inflate, almost covering the basket, its colorful design became visible to the spectators. Some Indians from a nearby reservation moved forward for a closer look, attracted by the Apache and Navajo symbols that formed a border around a design of Mexican and American flags. In the very center, Ben noticed, was an advertisement for a Mexican beer.

  “Did you paint this?” Ben asked. “It’s very good.”

  “No, no! Elana is the artist.”

  She came forward then, smiling as her work of art grew taller before their eyes. Then Pancho climbed into the wicker basket suspended beneath the air bag and signaled for Ben and Elana to free it from its moorings. As it rose into the afternoon sky another dust devil appeared, seeming to give chase.

  “A bad sign,” the old priest murmured.

  But the crowd let out a cheer, and Ben saw Pancho’s balloon rising straight up. “How will he get down?” he asked Elana.