"Three days," Benny said.
"The timing's right," Johnny Lee said. "He shoots Minamoto and then kills himself. We'll run ballistics on the gun."
"This stinks," Benny said.
Johnny Lee had been in the motel room with the dead body, and he could vividly remember the smell, but he understood Benny meant it metaphorically.
"What do I tell Minamoto's daughter?" Benny asked. "We owe her an explanation."
"Saito left a note," Johnny told him.
It was in Japanese calligraphy, done with careful brush strokes.
There was arterial blood spray on the wrinkled rice paper. Benny was cautious not to tear it. "What does it say?" he asked the college professor, spreading it out on his desk.
"It's haiku," the Japanese scholar told him.
"Bear with me," Benny said.
"It's a poem, very formally structured."
"Can you translate it?"
"It's not an exact science."
"Approximately, then," Benny said.
Snow alights gently
On the shoulders of a lark
Grief burns, fire takes wing
"Meaning?" Benny asked.
"Exile, perhaps, and rebirth, or renewal."
"The cops tell you they found this next to a suicide?"
The professor nodded.
"An educated guess, then."
"It might mean he redeemed himself, in death."
Benny decided he wouldn't show anybody else the poem.
He took Aurora and Angelina up to Emily Minamoto's farm to pick peaches. As he expected, it was hard work, but satisfying. The girls, of course, complained to him about it.
Benny had little sympathy.
Peaches, he explained patiently, are easily bruised.
Copyright © 2012 by David Edgerley Gates
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2012 EQMM Readers Award Voting Now Open!
It's that time of year again. Please take a few minutes to vote for your favorite stories of 2012. It's easy. Just pick your top three stories from this past year and list them, in order, on a piece of paper along with the following code: 5H1713B-AB Please provide your full name and return address,...
VOLUME ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE & ONE HUNDRED FORTY—2012
ALLYN, DOUG: Wood-Smoke Boys March/April 31 Death of a Drama Queen Sept/Oct 4 ALLYN, JIM: The Deer Woods February 76 BARNARD, ROBERT: Time for a Change Sept/Oct 150 BARON, MIKE: Five Stars July 25 BECK, ZOË: Out There February 97 BLAIN, W....
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PASSPORT TO CRIME
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2012 EQMM Readers Award Voting Now Open!
It's that time of year again. Please take a few minutes to vote for your favorite stories of 2012. It's easy. Just pick your top three stories from this past year and list them, in order, on a piece of paper along with the following code: 5H1713B-AB
Please provide your full name and return address, and be sure to pick stories for first, second, and third places. Ballots without return addresses and/or without choices for all three places will not be counted.
We encourage you to include any comments you have about this year's issues.
Send your completed ballot to: The Editors, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Dell Magazines, 267 Broadway, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10007. (No e-mail votes accepted!) Ballots must be postmarked no later than 12/5/12. To refresh your memory of the year's stories, please refer to the 2012 index in this issue. If you still can't recall the title of a favorite story, please briefly summarize the plot. Only new stories are eligible; votes for reprints of previously published stories will not be counted. The winners of the 2012 Readers Award will be announced in the May 2013 issue. For early results, please send a self-addressed, stamped envelope with your ballot.
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PASSPORT TO CRIME
SPECIAL FEATURES
VOLUME ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE & ONE HUNDRED FORTY—2012
ALLYN, DOUG: Wood-Smoke Boys March/April 31
ALLYN, JIM: The Deer Woods February 76
BARNARD, ROBERT: Time for a Change Sept/Oct 150
BARON, MIKE: Five Stars July 25
BECK, ZOË: Out There February 97
BLAIN, W. EDWARD: The Charles Dickens Mystery November 2
BOECKMANN, TORE: The Crime Behind the Fortune August 97
BOLAND, JOHN C.: Family Place March/April 111
BONNER, BRYNN: Final Vinyl Sept/Oct 111
BREAZNELL, GENE: Tunnel Vision June 41
BREEN, JON L.: The Jury Box May, November
BRETT, SIMON: The Ritual of Mr. Tarplee June 15
BROWN, STEWART: Dial Country Code M+1 for Murder December 105
BRUEN, KEN: Tort June 68
CAMERON, DANA: One Soul at a Time June 2
Mischief in Mesopotamia November 55
CÁRDENAS, ELIÉCER: The Strange Architecture of Destiny Sept/Oct 62
COOPER, N.J.: Diagnosis Death July 57
Lost Cause November 80
CRIDER, BILL: Blog Bytes Jan–Dec
CUTLER, JUDITH: The Parson and the Heiress March/April 53
What the Butler Saw July 59
DAVIS, JIM: Gone Fishing November 14
DEAN, DAVID: Jenny's Ghost June 25
Mariel December 19
DE NOUX, O'NEIL: Misprision of Felony December 34
DIEHL, BARBARA WESTWOOD: God Bless January 21
DUBOIS, BRENDAN: His Daughter's Island July 2
EDWARDS, MARTIN: No Flowers May 102
ELLIS, KATE: A Nice Neighbourhood May 29
ELLIS, RALPH: Never Enough Sept/Oct 99
EQMM Reader's Award (2011) May 75
EQMM Reader's Award ballot December
17FAHERTY, TERENCE: After Cana Sept/Oct 138
FONSECA, RUBEM: Marta January 61
Beauty November 40
GATES, DAVID EDGERLEY: Old Man Gloom December 80
GOLDBERG, LEE: Mr. Monk and the Open House January 27
Mr. Monk and the Talking Car June 50
GREENWOOD, THERESE: Wrecked March/April 117
GROOME, HARRY: The Girl Who Fished With a Worm May 2
HALLSTEAD, WILLIAM: Golden Contract January 90
HALTER, PAUL: The Man with the Face of Clay July 35
HEWSON, DAVID: Dead Men's Socks December 51
HOCH, EDWARD D.: The Suitcase November 84
HOOVER, KENNETH MARK: Phaedra February 43
HOWARD, CLARK: Black Pearls May 84
The Street Ends at the Cemetary August 2
HOWE, MELODIE JOHNSON: Losing It August 88
LANIGAN, SUSAN: Gymnopédie No. 1 Sept/Oct 28
LEWIN, MICHAEL Z.: Last Laugh Sept/Oct 156
Good Intentions November 89
LEWIS, EVAN: Skyler Hobbs and the Garden Gnome Bandit Sept/Oct 39
LINK, WILLIAM: Sally the Bookworm February 54
Just Another Saturday Night March/April 96
LOVESEY, PETER: Ghosted March/April 100
LOVITT, ZANE: Death at Le Shack February 87
MACKAY, SCOTT: Cruel Coast July 81
MALZBERG, BARRY N.: Always Her Eyes (with Bill Pronzini) March/April. 186
MANFREDO, LOU: The Home of the Brave January 45
A Path to Somewhere Sept/Oct 69
MARSTON, EDWARD: The Unwritten Law January 35
MATERA, LIA: Champawat Sept/Oct 159
MAZUK, HARLEY: Ice Sept/Oct 86
MCDERMID, VAL: Darkling Sept/Oct 127
MCEACHERN, GORDON: The History Lesson May 77
MERCHANT, JUDITH: Annette Writes a Ballade June 33
MILCHMAN, JENNY: The Closet November 44
MODRACK, BARBARA ARNO: Acting on a Tip July 46
MORAN, TERRIE FARLEY: Fontaine House August 76
MOSER, MILENA: In Walenstadt December 96
MUIR, BRIAN: Floating Ant February 29
MYERS, AMY: Murder Uncordial August 103
NADEL, BARBARA: Death in the Time Machine July 15
Nain Rouge August 33
OATES, JOYCE CAROL: So Near Any Time Always March/April 4
Hey Dad August 27
OLSON, DONALD: Drowned in a Sea of Dreams July 104
O'NEIL, GRANT: The Malibu Waltz July 68
PEIRCE, HAYFORD: Le Père Noël on Christmas Island January 73
PICCIRILLI, TOM: The Void It Often Brings With It November 69
POWELL, JAMES: The Fellowship of the Peach-Stone Ring January 65
PRONZINI, BILL: Always Her Eyes (with Barry N. Malzberg) March/April 186
Gunpowder Alley August 49
PULLEN, KAREN: Brea's Tale January 97
ROGERS, CHERYL: Farewell to the Shade February 37
ROZAN, S.J.: Golden Chance December 2
SALZER, SUSAN K.: The Saint of Pox Island . March/April 158
SANTLOFER, JONATHAN: The Muse Sept/Oct 54
SAVAGE, TOM: Rural Legend March/April 123
SAYLOR, STEVEN: The Widows of Halicarnassus March/April 164
O Tempora! O Mores! Olympiad! May 36
The Return of the Mummy June 75
SCHAEFER, P.A.: The Beautiful North March/April 149
SHADFORD, JUDITH L.: Walking Out June 61
SHANNON, JAMES T.: Shame the Devil July 94
SILVIS, RANDALL: The Indian March/April 62
SOLANA, TERESA: Still Life No. 41 March/April 143
STEINBOCK, STEVE: The Jury Box Jan—March/April, June—Sept/Oct & December
STODOR, ADAM: Check Number 275 May 56
STRICKLAND, J.L.: Amazing Grace, Sorta August 65
TODD, MARILYN: Cover Them With Flowers November 25
TOLNAY, TOM: The Misplaced Person Sept/Oct 130
TREMAYNE, PETER: Finnbarr's Bell January 104
TURNBULL, PETER: The Long Shadow August 39
Karen Ovenhouse and the Ruin Snooper December 70
WARREN, JAMES LINCOLN: Shikari February 2
WARTHMAN, DAN: Sonny Taylor: A Nontraditional Man January 2
WEINMAN, SARAH: Cog in the Wheel December 46
WEISFELD, VICTORIA: Premeditation February 61
YATES, DONALD A.: Immortal Londoners (verse) February 60
ZELDOVICH, LINA: Marsh Island May 67
ZELTSERMAN, DAVE: One Angry Julius Katz and Eleven Befuddled Jurors June 96
Previous Article
PASSPORT TO CRIME
PASSPORT TO CRIME
IN WALENSTADT
by Milena Moser
Born in Zurich, Milena Moser left school for an apprenticeship as a bookseller. On completing it, she lived in Paris for a couple of years, then returned to Switzerland where she co-founded a...
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DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES
DEPARTMENT OF FIRST STORIES
PASSPORT TO CRIME
IN WALENSTADT
by Milena Moser
Born in Zurich, Milena Moser left school for an apprenticeship as a bookseller. On completing it, she lived in Paris for a couple of years, then returned to Switzerland where she co-founded a magazine and became a freelance writer who now has sixteen novels, two volumes of short fiction, and many radio plays to her credit. She and her family lived in San Francisco from 1998-2006, where she found the inspiration for this story.
Translated from the German by Mary Tannert
The water was ice cold. There were hands in it, hands that closed around her ankles, tightened their grip, pulled downward. Martine had run down the bank and directly into the water, just as she always did when she trained with her swim club. But here she stopped suddenly, the water barely above her knees. She gasped for breath. The hands clung to her calves, squeezing mercilessly. She'd get leg cramps in a minute if this went on.
Never mind, she told herself sternly. She pulled on her goggles, adjusted her nose clip, raised her arms, and pushed off. Dove under the surface. And came back up again, coughing, breathless. Her feet paddled, wild and uncoordinated, spent one long, panicked moment feeling for solid ground. There was something wrong with the lake. She tore the goggles from her face, gasped again.
Martine Meier, long-distance swimmer. What a spectacle she was making of herself! Thank goodness nobody was around at this time of day to see her. The lake's beach was deserted in the gray of dawn, the water before her lay leaden and still against the backdrop of mountains so blue they looked like paper cutouts.
She'd woken up at five. Jet lag. Had simply lain there awhile in the unfamiliarly narrow hotel bed, wide awake, eyes open. In the next bed, Joanna snored gently. Four to a room—that was unfamiliar too. Yesterday evening, Joanna had generously doled out sleeping pills from her apparently plentiful supply of medication. Martine had refused them; after all, she was responsible for the little group. But at five in the morning, wide awake, she'd regretted her caution. Finally, she got up, pulled on her swimsuit in the dark, and made her way to the lake in the first shimmer of dawn, through the empty streets of Walenstadt.
At home, she had to drive just to get to the water. To the swim club on the bay, where she did her training every morning in ice-cold, mercury-contaminated water. A mile out, a mile back. 3.2 kilometers in just under forty minutes. A Swiss mountain lake shouldn't be any trouble. She settled the goggles on her face again, took a deep breath in. Breathed out.
There was something wrong with this lake.
Martine, pull yourself together!
In San Francisco, the water was a chilly fifty-seven degrees, and she swam every day clad only in a short-sleeved neoprene suit. There were big waves in the bay, seals, soft-drink bottles; there was sewage, and now and then even a shark gone astray. By comparison, a mountain lake was nothing!—even if, she admitted, it was a very deep, very dark lake. She pushed off one more time, dived under the surface, and stretched her arms over her head. Across the lake and back, that's what she'd set herself, but it was clear immediately that she couldn't do it. Not through the middle of that bottomless lake; it would swallow her, she was sure of it. She forced herself to swim a couple of strokes, swam away from a cold, naked fear, away from herself. But she thought she could see shadows through the goggles; hands, hands that reached for her. After a couple of strokes, she turned around. She didn't even swim all the way back; she was still far away when she touched bottom, stood up, and waded out. By the time she got to shore, the sun was coming up. It would be hot today, but Martine was trembling.
Her group was already at breakfast at the Hotel Churfirsten when she got back. The jet lag had affected all of them, all except for Joanna, who was still snoring peacefully when Martine let herself into their room to change. Joanna lay on her back, her mouth wide open, both arms wrapped around her light-blue cosmetic bag, which contained her collection of pills. Martine got dressed quickly and went down to the breakfast room; it was her job to help the group manage in these foreign surroundings.
"Over here, honey!" Mr. Zoggan, the tour organizer, waved her over to his table. But Kate, one of the three other women with whom Martine shared her room, rescued her just in time.
"Martine, can you come over here a minute? I really need your help!" They hid behind the menus, giggling like schoolgirls. Another successful escape.
Zoggan had hired Martine to accompany a small group of American hobby genealogists looking for their roots in Switzerland. Fourteen Americans with names like Wenger, Iberg, and Schaerer. Genealogy is a popular pastime in the United States. After all, everybody has roots somewhere. It's just that, in a nation largely settled by immigrants, this somewhere is somewhere else. And Mr. Zoggan, himself of Hungarian descent, had seen a market opportunity in that fact. He organized trips through Europe that were supposed to help Americans encounter their roots. He'd guided the first few himself, but then he'd begun to hire natives who could help the grou
p negotiate the usual cultural divides.
Martine had imagined the task would be easier than it was—a paid flight to Switzerland, she'd thought, a Switzerland that had seemed small enough after fourteen years in America that she'd have time for a quick visit with all her relatives and old friends, from her grandparents in Ticino to friends in Zurich and Basel, all the way to her brother and his family at Lake Geneva. Especially since the group was staying in Walenstadt. After all, in Switzerland all roads lead to Walenstadt. Or at least through it.
But her charges needed more of her than she'd thought. It started at breakfast: "No eggs? No bacon? Is that all?" they'd asked, staring glumly at the fresh croissants the Swiss called gipfeli, at the homemade jam, the comparatively strong coffee in big jugs, the foamed milk.
"Isn't there anything normal here for breakfast?" her niece had asked when she'd visited Martine in San Francisco, staring just as glumly at the menu of the Seal Rock Inn, famous all over the region for its breakfast.
"Normal?"
"Müsli. Or maybe a gipfeli."
"There are fried eggs. Sunny side up."
Kate turned the croissant in her hands. "All these carbohydrates," she sighed. "I really shouldn't. I'm on Atkins."
"Oh, never mind, they're so small!" Joanna slid into the empty seat next to Martine and reached for a gipfeli. She looked well rested and fresh, almost wound up. "Just eat half of it! What are we doing today?"