Black Cat Weekly #101

By Phyllis Ann Karr, Neil S. Plakcy, Anne Swardson and 6 more

Black Cat Weekly #101 presents 10 great tales of mystery. fantasy, and science fiction -- a pair of novels, a novella, and 7 short stories. Hours of great reading await!
Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:

“Lost Boy” by Neil S. Plakcy [Michael Bracken Presents short story]

“The Case of the Disappearing Document” by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery]

“River Secret” by Anne Swardson [Barb Goffman Presents short story]

“A Network of Crime,” by Nicholas Carter [novella]

Anybody’s Pearls, by Hulbert Footner [short story collection]

Science Fiction & Fantasy:

“Knocker Baby,” by Phyllis Ann Karr [short story, Bart Maverel series]

“Gentlemen: Please Note,” by Randall Garrett [short story]

“Killer Cat,” by Joseph Payne Brennan [short story]

“Pen Pal,” by Stephen Marlowe [short story]

The Hidden Kingdom, by Francis Beeding

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wildside Press
• Release date: Aug 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667682433

Book preview

Table of Contents

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

THE CAT’S MEOW

TEAM BLACK CAT

LOST BOY, by Neil S. Plakcy

THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING DOCUMENT, by Hal Charles

RIVER SECRET, by Anne Swardson

A NETWORK OF CRIME, by Nicholas Carter

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

ANYBODY’S PEARLS, by Hulbert Footner

PART I

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

PART II

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

PART III

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

KNOCKER BABY, by Phyllis Ann Karr

GENTLEMEN: PLEASE NOTE, by Randall Garrett

KILLER CAT, by Joseph Payne Brennan

PEN PAL, by Stephen Marlowe

THE HIDDEN KINGDOM by Francis Beeding

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

Copyright © 2023 by Wildside Press LLC.

Published by Wildside Press, LLC.

wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

*

Lost Boy is copyright © 2023 by Neil S. Plakcy and appears here for the first time.

The Case of the Disappearing Document is copyright © 2022 by Hal Blythe and Charlie Sweet. Reprinted by permission of the authors.

River Secret is copyright © 2012 by Anne Swardson. Originally published in Mystery Writers of America Presents: Vengeance. Reprinted by permission of the author.

A Network of Crime, by Nicholas Carter, was originally published in Nick Carter Stories #149 (July 17, 1915).

Anybody’s Pearls, by Hulbert Footner, was originally published in Detective Story Magazine, April 17, 1926.

Knocker Baby is copyright © 2023 by Phyllis Ann Karr and appears here for the first time.

Gentlemen: Please Note, by Randall Garrett, was originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, October 1957.

Killer Cat, by Joseph Payne Brennan, was originally published in Scream at Midnight (1963).

Pen Pal, by Stephen Marlowe, was originally published in Galaxy, July 1951.

The Hidden Kingdom, by Francis Beeding, was originally published in 1927.

THE CAT’S MEOW

Welcome to Black Cat Weekly.

I’m currently at Pulpfest, where I presented a short documentary film on editing Amazing Stories. (I made it in one of my film classes at Temple University, way back in 1983.) Darrell Schweitzer and I provided the soundtrack; the original has been lost over the decades. It was quite a fun experience, and I hope to post it to YouTube someday soon.

Anyway, Pulpfest is a huge celebration of pulp magazines, paperback books, artwork, and other fun stuff held every year in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I have been nominated for a Munsey Award tonight for all the pulp publishing I have done over the years. The list of nominees is always long and impressive (so impressive I probably shouldn’t be on the list!) but it’s fun to remembered. As I approach my 60th (!) birthday this October, no doubt I’ll continue looking back and seeing what else I can retrieve from the treasure trove of my past.

On with this issue! Here’s the complete lineup:

Mysteries / Suspense / Adventure:

Lost Boy by Neil S. Plakcy [Michael Bracken Presents short story]

The Case of the Disappearing Document by Hal Charles [Solve-It-Yourself Mystery]

River Secret by Anne Swardson [Barb Goffman Presents short story]

A Network of Crime, by Nicholas Carter [novella]

Anybody’s Pearls, by Hulbert Footner [short story collection]

Science Fiction & Fantasy:

Knocker Baby is copyright © 2023 by Phyllis Ann Karr [short story, Bart Maverel series]

Gentlemen: Please Note, by Randall Garrett [short story]

Killer Cat, by Joseph Payne Brennan [short story]

Pen Pal, by Stephen Marlowe [short story]

The Hidden Kingdom, by Francis Beeding

Until next time, happy reading!

—John Betancourt

Editor, Black Cat Weekly

TEAM BLACK CAT

EDITOR

John Betancourt

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

Barb Goffman

Michael Bracken

Paul Di Filippo

Darrell Schweitzer

Cynthia M. Ward

PRODUCTION

Sam Hogan

Enid North

Karl Wurf

LOST BOY,

by Neil S. Plakcy

A George Clay Investigation

I was dead to the world that morning, but the walls of my apartment building are thin and the doors are wood, so it was easy for my neighbor Patti to make enough of a fuss to wake me.

I stumbled out of bed and grabbed the nearest thing to clothing, a pair of baggy swim trunks. I was still half-asleep when I opened the door. All right, I’m awake, I grumbled. What’s the big deal?

George, a little boy has been kidnapped, Patti said. She still wore the uniform of her profession, a demure black dress that reached below her knees. I still thought of her as an airline stewardess, though she had told me since the airline had begun hiring men, we were to call them flight attendants.

I realized she must have just returned from the airport. You’ve got to help find him!

Hold on, I said. I need some coffee for this.

I let Patti into my apartment, a one-bedroom that hadn’t been updated since the building had been built some thirty years before. Silver diagonals zigzagged between the crown molding and the ceiling, and above the windows, which were three lines of five small panes set vertically.

That’s where the Art Deco stopped and the cheap sixties décor started. The apartment had come furnished, with bargain-basement sofa, kitchen table and chairs, and I hadn’t done anything to upgrade the place.

I grabbed a T-shirt and Patti followed me into my kitchen, where I set my Chemex coffee maker to brew on the Formica countertop. Then I turned around and leaned back on my counter. Tell me what happened.

Light came in from behind me, illuminating Patti’s oval face with a golden glow. I was on the London flight. This lovely Indian family were in the second cabin with me, flying in for a family vacation at the beach. Patti’s long, delicate hands shook as she spoke. Mother, father, two teen-aged girls, and a boy of about ten. His name is Pradeep, and he has brown hair, light brown skin, and deep brown eyes.

Hold off on the physical description, I said. Patti was so upset I wondered if she had anything she could take to calm down. She and her roommate Sandi often had a wide variety of brightly colored pills, of the one takes you up and one brings you down variety.

Not that I ever experimented I’m a beer and shots kind of guy when it comes to seeking alternate planes of existence.

So you met this family on the plane. I realized I had my arms crossed, and opened them, the way I’d learned in a seminar on body language Patti and Sandi had dragged me to. It was one of many being offered around town as people tried to get in touch with their higher selves, either through meditation, the hippie movement, or the Hare Krishnas. Then what?

They had to go through customs, and we had to stay behind to make sure the plane was empty. By the time I got out to the terminal Mrs. Kumar was wailing and crying, and I hurried over to see what was wrong. She took a deep breath. Pradeep had disappeared.

Did the airport police take over?

She nodded. It was so busy, with people going in all directions, loudspeaker announcements about gate changes, and Mrs. Kumar wailing up a storm. I missed the crew bus back to the parking lot because I waited with the Kumars until the police had checked all the bathrooms and back corridors.

She took a deep breath, and it looked she was going to cry. He was gone. Someone must have taken him.

My coffee was bubbling, so I poured myself a cup and offered one to Patti, though she was already hyper enough. She declined.

The police must be on the case. I sat at the table and motioned her across from me. Kidnapped children are bad for Miami’s image. Especially tourist ones.

Patti pulled out the pins that kept her hair up and tossed her head. You know what I think of the police.

She and Sandi were peace-love protesters, finding themselves in the middle of demonstrations whenever they were home in Miami. They’d been arrested once at a protest in front of the Freedom Tower downtown and had called on me to bail them out.

I’m sure they’ll do their best, I said.

You have to help, George, she said. Isn’t that one of the things you can do as a private eye? Find missing people? She opened her brown shoulder bag and dug out a purse bursting with cash from different countries. I can pay you.

She pulled out a fistful of bills. British pounds, French francs, and German marks all spilled out on my kitchen table. I didn’t want to take her money, because she and Sandi had been good neighbors, but the transfer of money creates a contract for a private eye, as my mentor had drilled into me.

I picked a single dollar bill out of the pile. Fine, you’re my client.

I empathized with the lost boy, separated from his family and all he had known. I’d been lost like that myself, when I joined the Navy, and then again when I left and had to remake everything about myself.

Well, almost everything.

I grabbed the small notepad I use for information about cases and copied everything she had told me. It wasn’t much. The Kumars were from London, and from Mr. Kumar’s custom-tailored business suit and Mrs. Kumar’s gold rings and bangle bracelets, it looked like they had money.

The two teenaged girls were quiet and well-behaved. They both wore beautiful saris, like their mother, but theirs were tied higher to expose their lower stomachs. Pradeep wore a white shirt and dark pants, she remembered, and he was very inquisitive. Patti had arranged for him to go up to the cockpit and visit the captain, and he had a pair of airline wings pinned to his shirt pocket.

I sent Patti to get some sleep and promised to keep her in the picture. Then I showered and dressed for a day in the humid Miami climate. A short-sleeved seersucker shirt in blue and white stripes, a pair of lightweight khakis, and Mexican huarache sandals without socks. I walked around the corner to where I’d parked my car, a 1958 lime-green Chevrolet Bel Air, and rolled the windows down to air it out. Then I turned the air conditioning on high and headed toward the Macarthur Causeway, the low-lying road that connects Miami Beach to the mainland.

Even with the A/C on, I kept the windows open so the sea breeze could blow through the car. I passed the cruise terminal on the left and turns to private islands on the right, all of it offering the beautiful Miami welcome of sun and fun, a promise that seemed to have been denied to the Kumar family.

Once I had crossed onto the mainland and gotten on the 836 highway to the airport, I rolled up the windows, because otherwise the car would have filled with noise and the smell of auto exhaust from other cars.

The highway dead-ended at the airport, and I parked by the international terminal. The area was as crowded as Patti had described, full of men in fedoras carrying briefcases and vacationing families with piles of luggage.

I went inside and began prowling the arrivals area. A big taxidermy sailfish flew over a wall of lockers. Middle-aged women wore sweaters and scarves over their heads, while their husbands browsed The Wall Street Journal and the Miami Herald. A guy with an unlit cigar in his mouth read El Universal, the paper from Mexico City.

Most of the skycaps were older Black men with stooped backs and deferential airs. Several of the ones I spoke with had seen the drama that ensued when Mrs. Kumar began screaming, but none had anything to add.

I made the rounds of the tour guides and car rental companies, and at the Avis desk I spoke to a dark-skinned Indian man whose name tag read Anil. A terrible thing for an Indian family, to lose a son, he said. Who will perform the funeral rites for his father?

From everything I’d heard, Mr. Kumar was a healthy-looking man in his forties. What do you mean?

"In our culture, it is up to the man of the family to perform the rites. Only a son has the power to pave the way for the soul to moksha, a release from the cycle of rebirth and death that karma holds us to."

I was curious, and I had learned in my brief career as a private eye that any detail could be important. What if there’s no son?

Without a son, his family will have to reach out to distant relatives or even an outsider. Some people are believing that women are too emotional and weak to conduct the appropriate rites. That they will cry, and if a single tear is shed during the service delivering the body to the funeral pyre, it will prevent the soul from leaving appropriately. That it will stay and haunt the family.

I nodded.

Anil continued, And in the olden days when one had to gather the wood for the funeral pyre and carry the body, women were physically not strong enough.

I thanked him and kept walking. I got a café Cubano, a concentrated little paper cup of espresso and sugar, to fortify me. Eventually I spotted a uniformed cop I had met during another investigation. I strolled over to where he stood watching the passengers. A lady in a pillbox hat like Jackie Kennedy’s walked by, holding a pair of white gloves in her hands, while her husband struggled behind her with two big suitcases.

Helluva thing, snatching a little boy in a big crowd like this, I said to the cop, whose name was Mike Hunt.

Hunt nodded a hello, then said, Not as hard as you’d think. So many people running this way and that, it’s not so hard to grab a kid and run off. Mostly girls, though.

What do you mean?

Happens at airports, where you might get young girls traveling on their own. Someone befriends them, convinces them to share a cab, let’s say. Then whoosh! They’re off into prostitution, drugs, whatever, and the family never knows.

Hunt shook his head. One time it was a crazy woman who always wanted a baby, decided to take one when she saw the mother’s back was turned.

Jesus, I said. They catch her?

Oh, yeah. Baby girl cried her head off and the mother went chasing after her. You don’t want to get between a mother and her child. I seen my wife go nuts when our boy was late coming home from a friend’s.

He leaned in close to me. They say there’s a white slavery trade still going on, but I don’t know from my own experience. Don’t know what anybody would want with a brown boy, though.

From my years in the military, and policing interactions with locals, I knew a few reasons why someone would want a boy like Pradeep, but I kept my mouth shut.

Once they get out of the airport, though, you gotta rely on nosy neighbors, people noticing there’s a kid there who wasn’t before. And even then, you can avoid the problem by keeping the kid locked up. Or you throw a couple of ’em in a boat and head down to the islands, where you got some rich people without principles.

He nodded at a girl in a miniskirt who waved gaily. Or they keep them in the house like slaves. I heard about some Haitian people, that’s their custom. They take in a kid from a poor family, pretending to adopt, then make them work their asses off for a few crusts of bread.

The news wasn’t good for poor Pradeep. I kept going, talking to everyone I could find, until I ran into to a heavyset Polish lady cleaning the men’s room.

I seen him go, she said. With a fat woman in one of those Indian dresses.

A sari? I asked. I mimed an over-the-shoulder motion.

Yes, sir. I told the police, I even described the dress to them, that it was dark blue with embroidered gold stripes. but they said I had the time wrong, that I must have seen the boy with his mother.

She shook her head. I saw the mother then, and her dress was purple, not blue. And the mother was much slimmer than the other woman. She thought for a moment. She had another girl with her, maybe fifteen, very pretty, with a gold dot in her nose.

Did you see where they went?

She shrugged. Out toward the front door. After that I lost sight of them. These johns don’t clean themselves, you know.

I thanked the woman.

I hope you find him, she said. No accounting for strange things people will do these days.

I left the airport with an idea beginning to form in my mind. I drove back to the beach, parked in the alley behind Mr. Ho’s, a Chinese restaurant on Collins Avenue. I went upstairs to my office above the restaurant and made a couple of calls.

Then I walked over to one of the big hotels a few blocks up on Ocean Drive. The sun was a wicked bastard, and even sticking to the shady side of the street I was sweating like a pig by the time I got to the Shelborne. I ducked gratefully into the lobby, picked up a copy of the Miami News, and settled in the corner to cool down and make myself presentable.

It took an hour for my sweat to evaporate, and then I made my way to Raj’s basement office. He had come over from India in 1965 as one of the first foreign students to study hospitality management at Florida International University in Miami. He was Eurasian, son of a white man and an Indian mother, and had grown up in Goa, on the eastern shore of the country, where his parents ran a small hotel.

Raj had graduated from FIU the year before and was gaining work experience at the Shelborne. I had met him a few months before when I was hired by the hotel to investigate a guest who’d slipped out without paying.

I found him in his air-conditioned office. The walls were studded with photos of celebrities and fabulous events.

Hey, George, what’s up? he asked.

I slid into the chair across from him. You’re Hindu, right?

On my mother’s side.

Tell me about your funeral rites.

He looked started, as if talking about dead Hindus was the last thing he’d expected from me.

Well, I can be unexpected.

He explained.

Is there a particular funeral home you’d trust for your services?

I’ve never thought about it. Hold on, let me make a call.

The only word I understood in his conversation was Babu, which meant father, but I knew he’d only dialed a local call, so I figured it was some father figure or community elder he was speaking to.

When he hung up the phone he said, There’s no specific funeral home for our people, but the Fred Hunter’s in Davie has what they call a ‘Hindu package.’

Do you think you could make one more call?

You have a name for the deceased?

I shook my head and explained my idea to him. Then he called the funeral home. I am in a bit of a pickle, he said, in his deepest South-Asian accent. I have been notified that one of my countrymen passed away, and I would like to come to his funeral and pay my respects, because there are so few of us here. But I have misplaced his name and the date and time of his service.

He listened for a moment and then said, Ah, yes, that must be the one. Ajay Varma. Would you happen to have the family address so I could pay a visit before the service?

I pulled out my notebook and added Ajay Varma, and Hunter’s.

Then Raj said, I understand. Of course. Thank you. I will be there tomorrow at eleven.

He hung up and turned to me. They aren’t allowed to give out personal information about the deceased. Does that name help you?

I think it does. I thanked him and headed back to my office, stopping on the way at the drugstore to pick up some film I had left to be developed. Then I went back to my office, where I wrote up a report for a wife about her cheating husband, including some of the clearest photos of him entering a no-tell motel on the mainland with a young woman in tiny shorts and a bikini top.

It wasn’t my favorite kind of work, but the buck I got from Patti would barely pay for my gas that day.

That evening I knocked on the apartment door next to mine. It was a small, narrow building, and we were the only two tenants on the second floor. Patti opened the door wearing a loose caftan in striped cotton, which showed her well-formed young breasts. George! she exclaimed. Come on in.

She tightened the belt around her caftan, and I followed her in. The apartment she shared with Sandi was a mirror image to mine, but totally different. They had bought cheap Scandinavian furniture and draped it in tie-dyed fabric. There were fluffy, oversized pillows on the floor and a hookah beside them, and a big, multicolored peace sign on the wall.

Sandi’s in Los Angeles and I’ve been feeling lonely. I’m glad you came over.

Just to tell you about Pradeep, I said.

She flopped on one of the floor pillows and picked up a bottle of wine. At least have a glass with me.

I settled beside her and accepted a balloon-shaped glass of white wine. While we drank, I told her what I’d done, and what I needed from her.

Fortunately, she was on reserve, subject to be called for another flight, but no one would call her for at least twenty-four hours because she’d just returned from overseas. She agreed to accompany me to Mr. Varma’s funeral. Just a hunch, but I think Pradeep might be there.

I stayed with Patti for an hour or so, until she wanted to go out, and I had to get out to the bar by the airport where I spend a couple evenings a week as a bouncer. The place was quiet, and I was able to serve my shift without having to toss anyone to the sidewalk. That’s the way I judge a good night.

The next morning was one of those gorgeous south Florida days, with barely a cloud in the sky, and a nice breeze. A beautiful day for a funeral.

Patti and I drove out to Davie, one county north and several cities west, and we slid into the back row of a small chapel with a coffin up front. I hoped I’d made the right guess.

A few minutes later, Pradeep walked in, in the iron grip of a heavyset woman in a sari. He was still wearing the same white shirt and black slacks, along with the airplane pin the pilot had given him. A teenaged girl with a gold button in the side of her nose followed a few feet behind.

There was no one else in the room. I had to prevent Patti from crying out, but as soon as she’d identified him, I went into the funeral home office and asked to use the phone. I called the main number for the police for unincorporated Dade County, which handled the airport area, and got put through to a detective who was handling Pradeep’s case.

I introduced myself. I’ve found the boy, I said. He’s at a funeral for Mr. Ajay Varma at the Fred Hunter’s in Davie.

He agreed to send uniforms as soon as possible, and I went back to Patti and watched the ceremony. They had just consigned Mr. Varma to the flames when the first officers appeared on the scene. They took Mrs. Varma and her daughter off to the side for questioning, and Pradeep recognized Patti from the plane and came over to us.

He was happy to see a familiar face while we waited for his parents to arrive. Patti introduced me as the man who had found him, and he shook my hand solemnly. I had to help Aunty Parvati with her husband’s funeral rites, he said. The family moved to Miami last month and they don’t know anyone else here. So, she picked me out of the crowd to help.

He smiled. She said that I was special.

And you are, Patti said. Very brave, too.

We left the police questioning the Varmas in the chapel and walked outside. It was payment enough to see Mrs. Kumar’s face as she jumped out of a rental car and picked up the edge of her sari, then ran to meet her son. There was a lot of hugging and kissing and crying, and somewhere in the middle of all that Patti explained my role in finding Pradeep.

I couldn’t remember the name of our hotel, Pradeep admitted to his father. So, I couldn’t call you. And Aunty Parvati said she would return me to the police as soon as her husband’s funeral was over. He looked down at the ground. It was a good thing I did, wasn’t it, Babu? he asked his father. Helping her with the funeral?

Yes, it was, he said. But why did she need you?

She told me that she and her husband and daughter had just emigrated here from Bombay, and they didn’t know anyone in the Indian community. Then her husband died.

She was not thinking clearly, Mrs. Kumar said. But I am very glad we have you back.

Mr. Kumar turned to me. We are very grateful for your help. This woman told Pradeep that she would have returned him to us, but who can believe someone who would do something awful. He pulled a leather wallet from his pocket, and like Patti’s, it bulged with bills. You must allow me to pay you for your services.

He extracted ten hundred-dollar bills and handed them to me. This is too much, I protested.

My son is worth more than rubies and diamonds to me, he said. And you returned him to us.

I thanked him. I hope you and your family have a very uneventful rest of your vacation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Neil Plakcy’s first full-length novel about George Clay, Bless Our Sleep, will debut in 2024. He lives in South Florida with his husband and two rambunctious golden retrievers. His website is mahubooks.com.

THE CASE OF THE

DISAPPEARING DOCUMENT,

by Hal Charles

Professor Jennings, said Detective Emily Proctor, are you sure you locked the door to your office?

Absolutely, said the figure in a rumpled tweed suit. I was gone for perhaps fifteen minutes on an errand to the library around noon, and when I returned, the historical letter was missing and I found this note.

Emily glanced at the small piece of paper on her former professor’s desk, then read the hand-printed message aloud: IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE LETTER AGAIN, LEAVE $10,000 IN THE TRASHCAN OUTSIDE THE DEPARTMENT OFFICE.

What’s special about this letter? said Emily.

It’s a recently discovered correspondence from George Washington to his wife, Martha, only days before his historic crossing of the Delaware River. The museum at the capital loaned me the document for verification.

I assume you found it authentic, said Emily.

Without doubt, said Jennings. I assure you its value is much greater than $10,000. In fact, it is historically priceless, giving us an insight into our first president’s emotions before one of the defining events of his career.

Emily walked to the office door. No signs of forced entry. Besides you, who has a key?

The professor thought for a second. My grad assistant, Brad Alcott, has one. And Walter Dowd, the department chair.

Anyone else? said Emily.

Rosa Fielding, the building’s custodian.

I think I’d better talk with those three, said the detective.

Emily found Rosa Fielding mopping an empty classroom on the building’s third floor. Ms. Fielding, she said, flashing her badge, can you tell me your whereabouts around noon today?

The diminutive woman propped her mop against a wall. I had a meeting with the HR people across campus at 11:30. I just got back about twenty minutes ago. Is something wrong?

After a quick call to Human Resources, Emily said, No problems. I’ll let you get back to work.

Walter Dowd was sorting through a pile of papers when his administrative assistant ushered Emily into his office. Professor Dowd, Emily said, I’m Detective Emily Proctor, and I need a moment of your time.

Lifting his right arm, Dowd glanced at an expensive watch. Detective, I’m an extremely busy man. What can I do for you?

Someone took a valuable document from Professor Jennings’ office earlier today, and I wonder if you know anything about the incident?

Dowd furrowed his brow. What could I possibly know about such an occurrence? he said angrily. Jennings has been crowing about that letter for weeks. I wonder what his friends at the capital will say if it’s missing?

May I ask where you were around noon? said Emily.

You can’t think that I had anything to do with the theft, said Dowd, his face reddening.

I’ve been here since 8:00 this morning trying to keep the department functioning smoothly.

Thank you for your time, said Emily. The outer office was empty as she left, and Emily made a mental note to check Dowd’s story with his administrative assistant later.

Brad Alcott was grading papers when Emily entered the faculty lounge. She identified herself and explained her reason for being there.

What terrible news, said the athletic young man. Everybody loves Professor Jennings. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to steal from him.

Where were you around noon today? said Emily.

Our department has a flag football team, and I spent my lunch hour on the athletic field down the road. He raised his right hand. The team is counting on this cannon to win Saturday’s game.

More than a little frustrated, Emily headed back to Jennings’ office.

Any luck? the professor said.

Could I have another look at the note? said Emily. Studying the message, she noticed several of the words were smeared. She smiled. Professor, you’re not the only expert with manuscripts.

SOLUTION

When Emily saw the smeared ink, she recalled Professor Dowd’s looking at the watch on his right wrist. Reasoning that he was left handed, a lefty herself, she knew that most left handers write in such a way that they drag their hand over what they’ve written, often smearing the fresh ink. Since Rosa’s alibi checked out and Brad Alcott was clearly right handed, Dowd had to be the thief. Confronted, Dowd confessed to taking the letter, not for the money, but to embarrass his colleague, whose popularity angered him.

The Barb Goffman Presents series showcases

the best in modern mystery and crime stories,

personally selected by one of the most acclaimed

short stories authors and editors in the mystery

field, Barb Goffman, for Black Cat Weekly.

RIVER SECRET,

by Anne Swardson

She took one tiny step toward me. Another—then hesitated. Her mother leaned down and murmured a few words in her ear. Reassured, the girl toddled forward more confidently, then, halfway to where I was playing, stopped again.

She wore a white wool coat that reached almost to her knees. A few strands of curly brown hair escaped from the fur around her hood, which had been carefully tied at the neck. By her sleek-haired mother, probably. Those dimpled hands were too little to tie anything.

Fortunately for me, they could hold a two-euro coin.

The child looked at her mother again. It was time to reel her in. I ended Sous le Ciel de Paris a verse early—kids never went for the melancholy material—and put the accordion down on its stand with a click. The girl turned her eyes back to me. I transitioned into 2/4 rhythm with the foot pedal on the bass drum. Picking up the trombone, I launched into the Bayrische Polka, keeping the oompah with the drum, adding a cymbal stroke to each downbeat with my other foot, and bobbing forward each time the slide came out with a wailing mwaa-mwaa.

A big smile appeared on the little girl’s face. She walked confidently to the beret lying upside down on the bricks in front of me and dropped in the coin. I grinned too and gave her another duck, almost a half bow, with a forward slide of the trombone. The girl looked amused, then beckoned her mother to come as she held out her hand for another coin.

Maman!

A few more spectators peeled off from the stream of Paris tourists who were coming down the steps of the Solférino footbridge, over the Seine, on their way to the Tuileries Garden. They joined the gaggle of Americans in tracksuits around me and my drums, horns, and stands, attracted by the polka lilt and by the exquisite little girl standing before me.

My location, at the entrance to the underground passage between the bridge over the Seine and the stairs up to the gardens, was the best in the business. When I blew a long note on the trumpet, the tones reverberated off the rounded tunnel ceiling. The cymbals were sharper, the drums crisper because of those acoustics. The river’s flowing water gave a sense of space and openness. And with my back to the passage wall, I could spot the oncoming Italians in high-heeled sandals, the rotund British, and the tall Dutch wearing backpacks and then adjust the musical selection accordingly.

Still, each day I needed something special to get an audience going, something to lure a real crowd around me. I needed that more than most, since I never sang, only played. The more people, the more likely I could pass the hat at the end of a set. It was always more lucrative than just waiting for the coins to drop in one by one.

If I was lucky, that moment had arrived.

But Maman wasn’t about to chip in another coin. She was distracted by a squat woman wearing a kerchief over her hair. In her grimy fingers, the woman held out a dull gold-looking ring as she sidled closer to her target.

"Mais, madame, see voo play, madame, madame…" The woman didn’t pronounce the words properly. Half her teeth were missing. Even though it was March, she was wearing only sandals, without socks, along with a moth-eaten sweater and a long skirt with faded yellow flowers.

Leave us alone, you disgusting thing! We’re just trying to enjoy the music! Maman held up a forbidding hand as the beggar took a step closer, waving the ring and laying a sidelong glance in the direction of the lady’s Hermès handbag.

The mother tossed her head, cinched the tie of her cashmere coat, put one hand firmly around the clasp of her purse, and held out the other to her daughter. Come, Marie-Christine. Let’s go watch the boys sail the boats in the basin. The little girl ran to her, and without another look at me, they were gone, up the steps and into the gardens. I tried to save the day by playing Hello, Dolly, replete with more slides and bass thumps, but it didn’t help. The crowd melted away. There was silence.

Only the kerchiefed woman was left standing there. She looked at me like a whipped dog, her head down, barely meeting my eyes. I stared angrily. I didn’t speak, because I never did. I didn’t cross my arms or shake my finger at her, as I had sometimes done before. But she knew she had driven away my clientele, and she knew I was angry. It was one of our agreements. She’d do her job, and I’d do mine.

She twisted her hands in her skirt and sighed.

I’m sorry, Baptiste. I thought I could help. Top us up a little.

Why I had decided to extend a hand to Tatiana I will never know. I had everything I wanted: a city license to play my one-man setup in a rainproof location that sucked in half the tourists in Paris; enough money to pay for my tiny studio in the Eighteenth Arrondissement and the frozen dinners I bought each night at the Picard store. There was enough to send back to my family in the South too, back when I used to do that. Back when I talked to them. Back when I talked. Before my memory told me I should speak no longer.

I nodded firmly toward the gardens and she knew what I meant: Leave my customers alone. If people pay you for those stupid rings, they won’t pay me for my music. And they certainly won’t put money in my beret if they find their wallets missing.

She shuffled off slowly, cowering as she went. I turned back to my instruments, my anger passing. She needed the money more than I did, and every coin she picked in the park reduced the number I felt compelled to slip her at the end of the day.

Maybe I shared with Tatiana because no one else would. Gypsies are human rats, I’d heard the policemen say after they’d chased the beggars, pickpockets, and scamsters from the gardens. Send them back where they came from. Don’t touch them; they’re dirty. Even American tourists, the most gullible of all the nationalities that walked by me each day, eyed the rings the Gypsies proffered with suspicion, then turned their backs and patted their wallets.

So Tatiana got a few coins from me each day, coupled with a warning that if she ever stole from me she’d never see another centime. She understood everything from my face, my gestures. I’d give her a shake of the head when I wanted her elsewhere, a tilt when a potential mark walked by. I’d bring her the odd bit of poulet rôti from my previous night’s dinner, a thin blanket when I had bought a new one.

What Tatiana mostly got from me was something no one else gave her: an ear. As I packed up each night, she’d come by and tell me in broken French about her life: growing up in a camp outside Plovdiv, making her way with others of her kind in a series of ragtag caravans from Bulgaria, across Hungary, over the Austrian Alps, then here. Camping, stealing, camping. Along the way there had been a man, and a child or two. She didn’t know where they were now.

* * * *

I saw the little girl again not long after that. It was warmer, but she still wore the white coat. She was with her mother, and so was a handsome black-haired young man—younger than the woman. His arm was wrapped around the waist of his companion. His eyes were on the woman’s face, his hand was atop the little girl’s head, stroking her hair.

I wasted no time in pulling out the trombone and starting up the polka.

Maman!

The girl pointed to me and made an excited little jump. The Mother—what else could I call her?—reached for her purse, but the man pushed her hand away. Fishing in his pocket, he pulled out a pink ten-euro note and inserted it in the little girl’s fist. He took her other hand in a firm grip, plastered a big smile on his face, and started walking with her across the paving stones toward my waiting beret. I kept up the beat. Tatiana, happily, was nowhere to be seen.

The child lost enthusiasm with each step. The farther she got from her mother, the more her feet dragged behind, the more she tried to turn back. Her face twisted into a pout. The beret was forgotten. The man kept the smile fixed in place and continued forward, pulling on her hand, trying to ignore her reluctance. The tourists were nudging each other and pointing.

The conflict ended when the girl stopped moving her feet entirely and collapsed on the ground, wailing. The man bent over her, ostentatiously trying to pick her up and get her pointed toward me, wrapping his arms around her chest and lifting. But she pulled away, dropped the money and darted toward the Mother. When she got there she buried her face in the cashmere coat. The woman made a gesture of resignation and picked up the sobbing girl, draping her over her shoulder as the man picked up the bill and rejoined them. They walked up the steps, side by side, the ten-euro note still in the man’s hand. I had warned Tatiana away from the Mother, but I wished she were nearby now so that I could nod my head toward that prey.

She came to my stand late that day, as I was breaking down the equipment. Business had been good, she said. Yes, it had. My pockets dragged with change, from yellow fifty-centime pieces to two-euro coins. I even had a few bills. As we sometimes did, we dragged my drum case and horn bags around the corner and sat on one of the concrete benches overlooking the Seine.

We often ended the day like that when the weather was good and the cops didn’t chase us away. The setting sun shone pinkly on the cream-colored stone buildings across the river: the Beaux Arts rail-station structure of the Musée d’Orsay; next to it the squat headquarters of the Légion d’honneur. To the left, upriver, we looked at the towers of Notre-Dame; to the right, the glass-paned cavernous roof of the Grand Palais, French flag flying atop.

The river itself was a sight to see. At this time of year, the Seine was fed by runoff from the mountains. A deep and viscous brown, the water was almost level with the cobbled walkway along the banks. The current slurped against the bridge’s pilings and pushed against the prows of the Bateaux Mouches as they slid up and down the waterway with their cargoes of tourists.

Look at this, Tatiana said, lifting her skirt and taking her earnings out of a pocket sewn inside. There was a guy waving a ten-euro bill around, and when he put it in his pocket, he left a corner hanging out. He never even saw me.

I clapped her on the back.

* * * *

The Mother, the man—I’d named him Romeo—and the little girl came by on their way to the gardens often in the month that followed. They, at least child and her mother, probably lived in the Seventh Arrondissement, on the other side of the footbridge, in one of those apartment buildings with ten-foot ceilings. People in those apartments wore cashmere coats and dressed their little girls in clothing from Tartine et Chocolat, the fancy children’s store on the Boulevard Saint-Germain.

Romeo must have learned his lesson, because he never again tried to bring the girl to the beret. She did let him hold her hand across the bridge, the Mother alongside. Then she always walked up to me alone. I’d play the polka and do my bobbing routine. It got to be a game: She’d smile at me, and I’d respond with a couple of little dance steps and a trombone wail. More steps toward me and I’d twirl around. The girl would laugh and put a coin in. I felt like laughing myself, for the first time in years. Unlike my older fans, who seemed almost ashamed to be giving money to a beggar, albeit a musical one, the child looked straight into my face. Her expression, a kind of puckery smile with a flash of her blue eyes, made me imagine that she knew how much those coins meant to me.

On a gray day in April, I was just finishing a set with La Vie en Rose when I saw that the child was there, standing a bit in front of the usual bunch of tourists. Next to her was Romeo. No sign of the Mother. His hair was slicked back from his forehead in an expensive cut. I had my audience with me; they had clapped to the theme from Can-Can and laughed when I swayed during the refrain of I Love Paris. I’d lose them if I played the polka. Instead I just winked at the child, and she smiled at me. She seemed unperturbed that her mother wasn’t there. One hand held onto the hand of the man, who looked down at her as if he couldn’t believe he’d won her over. The other fiddled with a heart-shaped locket that hung around her neck from a chain, one I’d never seen before and that I could tell was gold.

The girl gave me a bill this time, another ten-euro note from Romeo, and then they walked into the gardens and up the stairs. As they moved out of view, the man picked her up and whispered something in her ear.

The money flowed in that day. No sooner had one group left after a set than another would form around me, sometimes even before I’d started playing again. By late afternoon, I must have had forty people watching. I treated them to a jazz improv on the trombone, with only the cymbal tracking. I didn’t try that often, but the crowd was with me.

Suddenly, sirens wailed from the gardens. A voice thundered from the public-address system; I couldn’t make out the words. The pah-paw of police cars and fire trucks could be heard in the distance, then on the road above the tunnel. Two uniformed cops raced in from the bridge and rushed up the tunnel stairs, taking them two at a time as the tourists gawked. Just after they entered, the great grilled gates, the ones that closed the park off from the bridge each evening, began sliding shut.

The tourists scattered in confusion. I could still hear noise from the gardens, but it was a muffled rumble. I was locked outside. This was not convenient: I’d have to drag my stuff along the quay and around the west side of the Tuileries to get to the Métro if I couldn’t cross the park. Where was Tatiana? I had never before seen the gates close early. I began packing up.

There was a rat-a-tat, and one more set of racing footsteps sounded from the bridge. I turned and saw that they weren’t made by a late cop. The Mother, her face streaked with tears, coat hanging open, lipstick smeared, a cell phone in one hand, ran across the cobblestones in high heels and threw herself against the barred gate.

My baby! My baby! It was more a howl than a scream, a noise like no sound I had ever heard. Let me in! She hung on the bars as if without them she would melt to the ground.

Two uniformed policemen trotted down the stairs on the other side of the gate and came toward her. I could hear more shouts; someone was ordering that the gates be opened. The cops reached out through the grill and touched her hands. And I could hear some of the words they said to her:

So terribly sorry.

He says he only looked away for a second.

We will find the villain who did this, Madame.

* * * *

Music was the only thing that ever filled me up inside. Even before the memories from my childhood came back and stopped my voice, even before the stairs and the tunnel and the broad river became my only horizons, nothing but music touched the hollow core inside me. That’s why I learned so many instruments. Each one—not just my one-man band ensemble, but the violin, the piano, the plaintive oboe—gave me a different facet of what others get from normal life. When I played, I felt complete.

But on this day, the day after the child, the day after the Mother stopped being a mother, I was just blowing air and whacking drums. The voice my instruments gave me was an ugly, blaring thing.

I had gone back to the bridge to work. What else was there to do? I played the most melancholy of my Édith Piaf repertoire. No polkas. I didn’t even touch the trombone. It seemed unfair that the park was open as usual, and that the beret filled up, even though I wasn’t twirling, or bobbing, or smiling. How could those tourists be unaware that my music was crying, not singing? But I couldn’t leave, couldn’t go away from the last place where I had seen her.

Around midday, a hard thin man with steel-gray hair stepped up to where I was playing. He wore an impeccably pressed navy suit, with a tiny yellow square of silk handkerchief poking from the jacket pocket. With him were a chubby sergeant in uniform and a thuggish lieutenant in a leather jacket. The small crowd around me dissipated as soon as he approached.

I am Commander Bassin, the suited man said. Are you acquainted with a Tatiana Plevneliev? He pronounced the name as if his lips had never had to speak such horrible syllables before.

I had assumed the police would question me about the child. But why were they asking about Tatiana?

He got a nod of a head. It was tempting to deny our acquaintance, but the park cops had seen us together too many times.

How does she make her living?

I held out my hand, palm upward.

Bassin raised an eyebrow. The sergeant murmured something in his ear.

They say you don’t speak.

I shook my head.

Are you physically incapable of speech, or do you choose not to?

I shrugged.

I have to tell you, Monsieur…Baptiste, this is a very serious matter.

I put my arm to my side, palm out flat.

Yes, it’s about the child. Did you ever see her with Madame Plevneliev?

Enthusiastic shake no. It was true. There was nothing in children’s pockets to pick. Tatiana would have focused only on Romeo.

When did you last see her?

When was it? Had she come by yesterday morning? I shrugged and jerked my thumb over my shoulder in an a-while-ago gesture.

Monsieur Baptiste, I have to tell you, you must search your memory. We know she was in the park yesterday. We want to know if she came this way.

Bassin was standing motionless, looking straight at me as the sergeant took notes. I wondered what you wrote down if the person being interrogated doesn’t speak.

Raising both hands, I shook my head again. Yesterday was filled with the child. I had no recollection of anything else. All I could see in my mind’s eye was the white-coated figure in the arms of the man as he carried her into the park.

Have you ever seen the Gypsy with children?

Children? My heart turned cold. I could see where he was heading, and it was very bad. No, I hadn’t. I tried to shake my head as definitively as I could.

But I had a question. I clasped one hand in the other, one elbow high, the other low, then made a gesture straight back from my forehead. Bassin looked puzzled for a second, then the sergeant whispered again.

It’s not something you need to know, Bassin told me. But yes, Monsieur de Marigny says he saw her near the child. That wasn’t quite what I was asking. But it sounded like the police had found Monsieur Romeo de Marigny to be a very helpful witness.

Bassin left without a look behind him, his entourage trailing along.

It was another two days before a park cop told me what had happened. The child had been strangled, and her body had been found in one of the service closets dug into the high walls enclosing the Tuileries. Romeo had alerted the park police that she had vanished when his attention was briefly distracted by a Gypsy. The girl’s gold locket was gone. And when the cops searched every Gypsy in the park, which was of course the first thing they did, they found the necklace. In the pocket that Tatiana had sewn into the inside of her skirt. Which Tatiana was wearing.

* * * *

I didn’t visit her in prison, even though I was sure she was innocent. Like anyone who makes a living on the streets of Paris, Gypsies lied, scammed, cheated, robbed, maybe even roughed people up a bit. I had known dozens during my years by the river. They didn’t kill.

But even had I been able to tear myself off the tracks that marked my life—home, river, home—to make the one-hour trip to her holding center in Fontainebleau, there was nothing I could have done. Tatiana had no more chance of escaping this charge than she did of growing new teeth. No anti-discrimination group would speak up for her. No well-meaning citizen would collect signatures on a petition for her. No politician would stand up in the parliament building across the river and rail against the false charges. When Tatiana told her questioners about finding the necklace on one of the park’s pathways, even she probably knew they wouldn’t believe her.

I could imagine her in her pretrial appearances before the judges, looking nowhere but at the floor, twisting her skirt in her hands. Had they given her clean clothes to wear? Did she try to speak? Did her lawyer even make an effort? The front pages of crumpled newspapers that the wind blew up on the embankment showed her photo more days than not, climbing into a police van, surrounded by hard-faced policewomen who seemed to be shoving a little too hard.

Until one day the front-page photo was of only her face, and the article said she had died.

A brain aneurysm in the middle of the night. The authorities said she had gotten the best of care and the case was now closed. I put the newspaper into the yellow recycling can on the other side of the tunnel and turned and walked back to my stand and took the trumpet and played something or other for the rest of the day.

It wasn’t long after that that I saw the Mother—the Woman now, I guess. She was standing on the bridge, looking east toward Notre-Dame. She was alone, and silent, and thin. Spring had come and gone; it was July. The sun glittered on the river; it was one of those rare days when the water looked almost blue. The faint chatter of the tourists wafted down to me from the bridge. She paid no attention.

I picked up the trombone and began the Bayrische Polka, looking straight up at her in the distance, ignoring the crowd of camera-pointing Chinese and sounding the notes as loud as I could. At first, it seemed as if the music didn’t reach her. Then she turned her head toward me slowly and stared motionless for a long time. It was not until the last chorus that she lifted her hand slowly and gave me a gentle wave.

Romeo turned up too a week or so after that. I didn’t see him at first. He was hanging back behind the crowd a bit, as if he was trying to stay out of sight. As I played, I could feel, rather than see, him circling around behind the watching tourists, coming to rest behind a family of what must have been Americans. A smile was forming on his lips. They had two children, an elementary-age boy and a smaller girl. She had blond curly hair and looked like she might have been in kindergarten.

That was enough.

Right in the middle of Les rues de Paris, I put down the trumpet and rose from my stool. I walked through the ranks of astonished tourists, parting them with my hands and breaking through the back of the crowd. I stood in front of him.

He tried to push by me, but I moved sideways and he stopped, the river on his other side.

I opened my mouth. Breathed in. Made a little cough, breathed again.

M-M-Monsieur. My voice rasped. I—I have some information that I think you need to hear about the little g-girl in the white coat.

If I had had any doubt, his face dispelled it.

I don’t know what you mean.

The tourists were staring at us as intently as if I were playing my trombone from the bell end. I said nothing. Stared at him. He shifted on his feet.

The suspect died in prison.

I lowered my voice. Monsieur, I think it would be better if you heard what I have to say. Better that I tell it to you than…

All right, what do you want? No smile now. His arms were folded, his head cocked, but his body was rigid with tension.

Return tonight, at midnight. I will be here.

* * * *

He came not across the bridge but from the quay, skulking past the long line of moored houseboats, one behind another, the tables and flowerpots on their decks ghostly in the moonlight. I stood with my back to my instruments.

I’ve seen men like you before, I said. I know what you did.

Is it money you want?

I want to know the truth.

Truth? I don’t know what that is. I loved her. Maybe a little too much, is that what you’re asking? I only wanted to touch her for a second. Nothing bad. But if she’d told her mother… Anyway, what will it take for you not to squeal?

He put his hand into the pocket of the loose jacket he was wearing. As he looked down, I made my move, even before I saw that he was pulling out a knife, not money.

And if someday a body surfaces far downriver from where I still ply my trade, or if they drag the river for some poor drowned child or missing teenager and turn up the corpse of a man instead, I hope they notice that the victim is not just another casualty of the muddy waters.

I hope they see that on the left side of his head, just above his ear, is a deep, slanted indentation made with such force that it sliced, rather than cracked, his skull. A wound struck with the force of love, and pain, and decades of pent-up silence.

I