Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 11/01/12 (11 page)

 
Since 2008, when this magazine lost one of its greatest
contributors, Edward D. Hoch, we've been presenting occasional reprints of
stories he sold to other publications. Most of the stories have not been typical
of the sort of work Ed Hoch did for
EQMM.
His work for
us was predominantly in the classical vein—fairly clued whodunits with
series characters readers came to know intimately. Over the past four years
we've tried to show, through these reprints, Ed Hoch's versatility. Here, for
instance, we see that he was a master of the story with a twist in the
tail.
 

 
The plane, a silver bird dipping its wings to the far-off dawn, came
in low over Jason Lean's farmland. Too low, he remembered thinking, for he'd
seen so many hundreds on the airport approach that he almost at times felt he
could fly one. Too low, with the rising sun in the pilot's eyes and the double
row of power lines crossing the tip of the hill. He shouted something, to be
heard only by the field birds and the indifferent cows, then screwed his face in
a sort of horror as the great plane touched the unseen wires.

There was a crackle of blue flame, no more than that of a match lit and suddenly
dying, but it was enough to spell death to an airliner. The entire hillside
seemed to explode as the plane twisted into the ground, boring deep like some
hibernating animal, spewing flames that might have told you the animal was a
dragon.

Jason Lean watched until the first flash of flame had died, and then began the
short trek across the valley to the wreckage on the hillside. Others would have
seen the crash too, he knew, and already it would be tapping out on the news
tickers of the world. How many dead—fifty, sixty? Those big planes
carried a lot of people these days. He shook his head sadly at the thought, but
did not increase his pace. He already knew he would find nothing alive when he
reached the smoldering wreckage.

Now here and there a tree was burning, and there ahead he could see the tail
section of the plane itself, a great silver thing that sat silent now as a giant
tombstone. Padded seats, so comfortable with their bodies still strapped
sitting—grotesque, but all too real. And strewn across the landscape,
wreckage, flesh, baggage, mail pouches, fallen trees, dangerously dangling
wires. As if a giant hand—a flaming devil's hand—had written its
signature on the hillside. All dead, all.

He walked among them, terrified, remembering somewhere deep within the recesses
of his mind a time when, very young, he'd walked through a country graveyard at
night. He took in all the details of grief and tragedy, the spilled suitcases,
the child's toys, the scorched and splintered packing cases . . . and then his
eyes fell on one suitcase, resting apart from the others, its leather hide
barely marked by the smoke.

It was a large bag, of pale pebbled pigskin, with two tough straps around it to
reinforce the lock. It was the only one he saw that had neither burned nor
tumbled open to spread its contents over the landscape. Jason Lean stood for
some moments staring at the bag, as if it held some strange sort of fascination
for him. Then, in an instant of certainty, he stood and grasped the plastic
handle, lifting the suitcase from the ground. He turned once to look over his
shoulder, to make certain that none of the blackened corpses moved in
accusation. Then he hurried back down the hillside, through the smoky haze of
destruction, carrying his treasure like some traveler only just returned from a
world tour.

 
"A plane crash," Martha said when he returned. "What a terrible
thing!"

"Terrible," Jason agreed. He always agreed with his wife. "I was over there,
looking at the wreckage. They're all dead." Already, on the distant ridge, they
could see men moving like ants. Police, ambulances, morgue wagons,
reporters—all converging now on the scene of disaster. Making their way
carefully around the fallen wires and the blackened wreckage. Hoping, then
feeling hope die as they saw what Jason Lean had seen.

"What's that you've got?" she asked, noticing the suitcase for the first
time.

"I found it up by the wreckage. It's not burned or anything. Must have been
thrown clear."

"And you took it?"
She made the words into something terrible, and for
the first time he realized just what he had done. "You took it? From the
dead?"

"I . . . I thought it might have something valuable in it. They're all dead. It
belongs to no one." But even as he spoke the words he knew he would never
convince her.

"That's looting! It's like robbing graves, but even worse. Jason, you have to
take it back this minute, leave it where you found it."

"Don't be silly—how could I do that when the hill's swarming with people?"
It was the first time he had ever raised his voice to her, and he regretted it
at once. "I'll get rid of it, just as soon as I open it up and look inside."

"Jason, you're not opening that suitcase! I can't imagine anything more horrible
than pawing about in the belongings of some poor dead creature who was so much
alive just an hour ago."

"But . . . but there might be something valuable inside, Martha. It's an
expensive suitcase, you can see that. Suppose it contains fancy clothes, or an
expensive camera, or important papers. Or even money!"

"Jason, either you return that suitcase this minute, or you take it out behind
the barn and bury it. I'm not going to have it here. I'm not going to have you
opening it and going through it. I don't want the man's ghost coming and
haunting us for your awful crime!"

He knew it was useless when she got in one of those moods. And yet his will was
torn between her commanding words and the questioning suitcase that rested now
on the floor between his feet. "Martha . . ."

"Bury it! Get it out of my sight, Jason!"

"All right." He went out with bowed head, carrying the heavy suitcase beyond the
faded red barn to the little animal graveyard. While Martha watched from a
distance he dug a shallow hole and buried the pigskin bag between the old cow
and last year's cat. "All right. It's done."

But as he followed her into the house there was a sort of sadness in his
heart.

 
The following morning a car stopped on the road and a tall young man
walked back to the barn where Jason was busy with his daily chores. "Hello
there," he called out. "Got a minute?"

Jason set down his milk pails and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Sure,
mister. What can I do for you?"

"We're investigating yesterday's plane crash over on the hill. We thought you
might have seen something that could help us." The man had taken out a little
notebook. "You're Jason Lean, correct?"

"That's me, and I saw it, all right. Plane came in too low. Hit those power
lines. Was just at dawn, and I suppose the sun might have blinded the pilot for
a minute. It hit the lines and that was the end of it."

"Did you go over to see the wreckage?"

"I . . . No, I started to, but then turned back. I was afraid of those fallen
power lines."

"Just as well," the investigator said, making a brief note in his book. "You
couldn't have done anything. They were all killed instantly."

"Yes. Horrible." Jason turned to stare out across the valley, toward the hillside
scar which would take many seasons to heal.

"Thanks for your time," the man said. "I may be back to talk to you again."

"Certainly. Anything I can do . . ."

The man nodded a smile and started back to his car. He hadn't asked about the
suitcase, Jason thought. They'd never missed it. Burnt to ashes, they probably
supposed.

And that night, in bed next to the cold flesh of his wife, Jason imagined it all
again. Opening the suitcase, finding a lifetime's treasure nestled there
waiting. What would it be? Money? A woman's wardrobe and jewels? A salesman's
sample kit of fine furs? Something for Martha, perhaps. Or himself. Even a fine
new suit that could be made to fit him.

The next day, in the late afternoon, while Martha was cleaning in the front of
the house, his uncertain footsteps took him once more to the animal graveyard
beyond the barn. Perhaps, if he could only dig up the suitcase and
look—then bury it again before she ever knew the difference. Yes, that
was what he would do. Must do.

He retrieved the old spade from the barn and started to dig. After a moment's
work he could feel the familiar leather hide as he scraped the dirt from it.

"Jason!"

"Martha. What are you . . . ?"

"Jason, you were going to open it! Cover it up this instant! Don't you realize it
will bring us nothing but tragedy? Don't you realize it belongs to a
dead
man?"

"All right, Martha. I was just . . ."

"Cover it up, Jason. And don't do that again."

He covered it up.

 
But still, as the days passed and the memory of the crash itself
drifted further to the back of his conscious mind, there was still the shape of
the sealed suitcase to obsess him. He saw it in his waking and sleeping hours,
saw it closed as first he'd met it, and open with all its treasures exposed. It
became, in various fantasies, a spy's hoard of secret plans, an embezzler's
final crime, a businessman's stock of everyday valuables. He imagined all the
hundreds of things that might come tumbling out if only he looked. The things
he'd never owned; like an electric razor, or a portable radio, or a fine
camera.

No, decided Jason with finality, after a week of torment. Whatever was in that
suitcase, it was not going to rot in the ground behind the barn. He found Martha
in the kitchen and told her of his decision.

"I'm going to dig it up and open it," he said.

"Jason . . ."

"Nothing you can say will stop me, Martha, I have to know what's inside it."

"Jason, there's death in that suitcase. I can feel it in my bones."

"I have to
know!"
he screamed at her. And when she stepped heavily into
his path he brushed her aside as he would some animal in the field.

"Stop, Jason!"

He hit her, only to shut that refusing mouth, only to silence her for a few
important moments. She fell heavily, her head catching the edge of the old
stove. He sucked in his breath and bent over her, chilled now to the bone. She
wasn't moving and he knew in some fantastic manner that he'd killed her.

But he didn't stop. He hurried on to the barn, with a speed born now of nameless
panic. The spade, digging in the familiar earth, uncovering, revealing.

Yes, the suitcase. Still there like some Pandora's box awaiting him. His hands
fumbled with the straps, teeth biting into lips, forehead sweating a chill
moisture.

But it was locked.

Into the barn, carrying it gently now, with clods of earth falling from it. Into
the barn, and a few careful blows with the pitchfork, prying the lock apart
until it snapped under the pressure. Finally.

He opened the suitcase.

 
The government inspector found them, some time later, when he
stopped by the Lean farmhouse to ask some further questions about the airliner
crash. He found Martha Lean on the kitchen floor, and she looked so peaceful it
was hard to believe she was dead.

And he found Jason Lean in the barn, kneeling in a sort of daze over an open
suitcase. It was a salesman's sample case. It was filled with leather-bound
Bibles.

Copyright © 1962 by Edward D. Hoch. First published in The Saint magazine.

 
The first character Michael Z. Lewin created, back in 1969,
was Albert Samson. Samson's debut case was intended to be a short story but grew
into a novel. The Indianapolis private eye most recently featured at novel
length in 2004's
Eye Opener,
but he was last seen in the December 2011
EQMM
story "Who I Am," with a client who claimed to be an
extraterrestrial. Samson and his eccentric client are back this month, in an
adventure that's laced with Michael Z. Lewin's wry
humor.
 

1.

 
It seemed like the rain would never stop. I was getting cabin fever
and I wasn't even in a cabin. Had I
ever
been in a
cabin?
I
mean, a cabin? I couldn't remember one. I wanted to go to a cabin. Experience
Cabinness. Be thoroughly cabined. The rain seemed like it would never stop.

I was bored. There is only a certain amount that a private investigator can do
constructively when he is without clients, even in a fascinating, action-packed
city like Indianapolis. I'd done it and it wasn't even noon yet. We do get rains
like this here, but not usually in November. Or is it common in Novembers? Had
the incessant rain washed my memory away?

It was with pleasure that I thought I heard footsteps on my office stairs.
Normally I'd dismiss such sounds as self-delusion—so few clients ever
arrive without an appointment. And then there was the rain. I mean . . . could I
really
be hearing footfalls among the plops of those endless
raindrops?

As it turned out, I could. There was a knock at my door. Even the most savage
rain doesn't do that. I dashed to respond. The last thing I wanted was for a
prospective client to dissolve away.

The last thing I expected was to open the door and recognize the prospective
client. My repeat clients always call, make appointments, even summon me to come
to them. But then again, this prospective repeat client was not a normal kinda
guy.

"LeBron," I said. "Come in. Get out of the wet."

I stood back but he didn't cross the threshold. At first I thought he was being
contrary, but then I saw it was hard for him to move at all. One arm hung loose
at his side. His clothes were torn. He was standing askew.

"LeBron, what's wrong?"

Faintly he said something. When I leaned forward and asked him to repeat it he
said, "It's Wolfgang now."

It took awhile, but eventually I sat him in my Client's Chair. He groaned with
each step. I sat on my desk facing him. "How badly are you hurt?"

He didn't respond.

"How badly are you hurt, Wolfgang? Should I call an ambulance?"

"We heal quickly."

I didn't like the way he held himself in my chair. I didn't like the sound of his
breathing. I didn't like the sight of blood dripping onto my floor. I picked up
the phone.

"No."

"Yes."

He passed out. I dialed 911.

2.

 
St. Riley's emergency department was full, which surprised me. Ice
and snow produce broken bones, but rain? What were they all here for?
Near-drownings? Mold?

Whatever the answer, the emergency crew jumped Wolfgang to the head of the line.
"So what happened to your friend?" asked the nurse when I followed him to a
cubicle.

"I have no idea."

"What's his name?"

"Wolfgang."

"Wolfgang," the nurse said. "Interesting." She turned to him. "Wolfgang, my name
is Matty. Can you hear me?"

He made a sound. I couldn't make out, like, a
word,
but Nurse Matty
seemed happy with the noise itself. She turned back to me. "Has he lost
consciousness since it happened?"

"He passed out when he arrived at my office, just before I called nine-one-one.
Before that I don't know."

"How long ago did this happen?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know much, do you?"

"No, ma'am, I don't."

"Did you do this to him?"

"No."

"You know
that,
do you?"

"He came to where I live, dragged himself up a flight of stairs, and knocked at
my door. That was about . . ." I looked at my watch. "Fifty-seven minutes ago,
when I called nine-one-one. I don't know what happened before he got to me,
where it happened, when it happened, or how he got to my place."

"He's . . . your boyfriend?"

"He's not a friend of any description. Two months ago he hired me to do a job for
him. I haven't seen or spoken with him since."

"That was September?"

"Yes. I finished the job for him in a day."

"You're not a plumber by any chance?"

"No. Sorry."

She sighed. "So, why did he come to you?"

"Once you and your colleagues put Wolfgang Dumpty back together again, maybe
he'll tell me."

"That's his last name? Dumpty?"

"I have no idea what his last name is. When I worked for him he called himself
‘LeBron James.' If he's ‘Wolfgang' now, chances are that the rest of his handle
is Mozart. He has an interest in prodigies."

"What's all that supposed to mean?"

"He changes his name sometimes."

"He changes his name?" She looked from me to him and back again. "Why?"

"I'd rather he told you himself."

"Is he crazy? Is that it?"

"Personally, I think he's unusually sane. But he does have some quirks."

"You're not helping me here."

"I'm helping you as much as I can."

"Does he have medical insurance? Wait, let me guess. You don't know."

"I can probably remember his address."

"But he was rich enough to hire you for a day in September?"

"Yes."

"Are you cheap?"

"I'm fabulously expensive and worth every penny."

"A doctor will be here in a minute. I'm going to check his pockets now. They
might have some ID that will help."

She checked his pockets. They were empty. Which surprised me, because when he
came to my office in September he was carrying a lot of cash. So maybe he'd been
robbed.

"Go tell them what you can at the desk," she said.

"And will you let me know when you find out what's wrong with him?"

"You're waiting around?"

"Yeah."

"Even though you're not a friend?"

"I give good customer aftercare."

She made a face at me.

I left to deliver a second batch of "I don't know"s at the reception desk.

3.

 
I expected to be left to my own devices in the waiting room for a
long time but Nurse Matty came to get me less than a quarter of an hour after I
picked a seat.

"You
are
still here."

"Didn't you expect me to be?"

"Not after we found your friend—no, your nonfriend—has stab
wounds."

"That's not nice."

"No, it's not."

"And you thought I was the stabber and had made a run for it."

"Look, can you come with me and go through what you know with our head of
security?"

"While you wait for the cops to come and have me go through what I know with
them?"

"Or hunt you down like a stray dog if you don't stay. Your call," she said with a
bit of a smile.

"Why don't you tell me something about Wolfgang's prognosis."

"The doctor found two wounds in his belly before I came to look for you. Neither
looked deep or in a vital place, but they'll take him up to an operating theater
in a few minutes to make sure."

"And has he said anything about what happened or who did it?"

"He's been mumbling things. Maybe an old friend like you will be able to
understand him better than I can."

 
I followed Matty into the treatment labyrinth. I wasn't sure what
to tell the security people—or the cops. When I knew him, Wolfgang's
fickleness about names wasn't his main peculiarity. That honor fell to his
insistence that his father was an extraterrestrial.

But with me he behaved rationally and paid cash. By no means all the terrestrials
I deal with do either.

The security guy was a woman who was taller, younger, and arguably more muscular
than I am. She waited for me at the foot of Wolfgang's bed, but as I was about
to introduce myself, the patient spotted me and tried to sit up.

He said, "Albert."

It was quiet but clear enough for Nurse Matty to ask, "Is that you?"

I nodded and went closer to his head.

"Four of them," he whispered.

"Who were they?"

What he'd already said seemed to have left him exhausted. But then he made one
last effort and said what sounded like "Terrorists . . ."

4.

 
Once the magic "t" word was passed on to the police, it wasn't long
before two officers in uniform homed in on me like I was the door to their
future careers. By then, Wolfgang was in surgery.

I followed the cops to a visitors' room, but it didn't take long for me to repeat
my collection of "I don't know"s. However, it was long enough for Nurse Matty to
stick her head in with an update. "Sorry to bother you, Officers," she said,
"but the surgeon upstairs believes that the two abdominal wounds were done with
different knives."

The uniforms looked at each other. I said, "How do you tell something like
that?"

"Think about an ordinary knife," she said. "One side sharp, one side blunt."

"Okay."

"And think about it being pressed through skin. Once the point goes in, one side
of the wound is cut by the sharp edge but the other is just rubbed by the blunt
one. Maybe torn open a little, but not cut. The result is that the two ends of
the wound look completely different under magnification."

"Sounds reasonable," I said.

"Apparently one of the blades that cut him had
two
sharp edges, whereas
the other had only one. That's what he says. He also says that he can't be
completely certain without doing an autopsy."

I leaned forward.

"But he doesn't think it'll come to that," she said. "Oh. And they found another
cut. On his back. Not as deep. He didn't say if he thinks it was done by one of
the original two knives." She left.

"She says there were three wounds, not two?" the smaller of the two cops
asked.

I nodded. Poor ol' Wolfgang.

The smaller cop crossed something out in his notebook and wrote a correction.

The larger cop just said, "What's he expect?" He was a big guy who looked the age
and size of a high-school lineman.

"What do you mean?" his colleague asked.

"He said it was terrorists," the lineman said. "If he's going to mess with
terrorists . . ." He looked from his colleague to me, for support.

I said, "If someone is attacked by terrorists,
they're
responsible?" I
shook my head. "You're saying the nine-eleven people were
messing
with
terrorists?"

"I just said . . ." the lineman began. But he stopped.

His colleague smiled and shook his head slowly.

I said nothing more. And at least they had treated me as a witness rather than a
suspect, probably because Nurse Matty had stressed that I stayed around after
Wolfgang came in.

But with the patient in surgery and the uniforms unable to think of more
questions for me not to know the answers to, I began to consider leaving. It was
then that a southside detective, Imberlain, showed up. So I got to do it all
again.

By which time Matty had a further update. The surgeons had found a fourth cut.
They were now putting Wolfgang's spleen and liver back together. I decided to
leave, at least for the time being.

I'd followed the ambulance in my car, so I had wheels. But instead of using them
to go back home, I went to Wolfgang's house.

Wolfgang had showed up at my office about eleven-thirty. Now it was nearly four,
and still raining. I didn't know when he'd been attacked by the "terrorists" but
he'd been away from home for many hours.

When I got there, though, it didn't seem like the house was empty. Through the
rain I could see some lights on inside. But not behind curtained windows. I
could see them through the wide-open door.

I parked and went to the porch. It was then that I discovered the door wasn't
wide open after all. It had been pulled off its hinges.

5.

 
I had no idea what Wolfgang had been doing in the two months since
I'd last seen him. Then, he was hale and hearty—not a single stab wound.
He had talked optimistically about the future, wanting to create a project to
help the people he described as society's "invisibles."

And when I'd last visited his house, the interior was immaculate.
Wolfgang—though then he was LeBron—had converted the conventional
interior into a large space. He'd done all the work himself, having trained as a
carpenter. As well, he'd painted pictures and designs on the walls. There wasn't
much furniture when I'd been there, just what a half-alien gentleman would use
when living on his own.

But now, coming through the open doorway, I saw pieces of furniture everywhere.
Most seemed once to have come from beds, and there were also mattresses ripped
open.

This was clearly a matter for the police, though none were on the scene.

Which left me with a decision to make. I ought to call Imberlain, who'd given me
his card. But my impulse was to call my daughter. She was a cop just off her
probationary year. Sam didn't work Southeast but Wolfgang's house wasn't far
from the southwest sector where she did work. And she, at least, was used to me.
She wouldn't ask me endless questions about why I'd gone to Wolfgang's house
instead of going home.

"Why did you call me, Daddy?"

"You're a cop. This is a police matter."

"Call nine-one-one."

"It isn't an emergency. The house isn't on fire. The front door's been ripped off
its hinges. The owner's in hospital with four stab wounds. There are a few
lights on, but I don't know if anyone's inside. I didn't want to go in without
somebody knowing where I am and what I'm doing."