The
Angry Violinist by Charles Schaeffer. Ah,
retirement. A time to relax, enjoy life, maybe play a little
canasta or shuffleboard. Or match wits with a shipboard murderer.
I
should have warned the Precinct gang to hang on to their night jobs.
Not that the “Auld Lang Syne” they harmonized was bad, just out of
season, on my last day, June 30th. Surprised?
Sure.
The envelope in the chief’s hand was far from my idea of a
parting gift after twenty-seven years in the
Washington
,
D.C.
detective bureau.
I accepted polite applause as the captain handed me the
tickets—roundtrip air, plus perks—packed into a fourteen-day
riverboat trip down the Danube. Me on the
Danube
?
I figured myself more a Hong Kong or
Moscow
denizen. But, as it turned out, the
Danube
runs deeper than Strauss and Mozart.
Much deeper. But it’s not blue.
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A
Slice of Prosciutto by Steve Haberlin. The
power of the press. We sometimes love 'em and we sometimes hate
'em, but ain't it great to see them take down some sleazeball? But
it's not easy. Trust me.
There I was, hot on the trail of this pudgy,
coke-sniffing mayor. He had ducked into an Italian bistro to get his
usual, a prosciutto and cheese sandwich and a cup of coffee.
The rotund fellow with the dark comb-over had
made quite the name for himself. An aggressive politician who used his
influence, or whatever means necessary, to put his city, a little
Italian community in New England, on the map.
But I knew there was more to him.
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Rose
and the Mask by Jan Christensen. The
ancient Greeks used masks for their actors, specifically to represent
various emotions: Anger, Sadness, Happiness. Such masks are still
common in some forms of theater in the Orient. We use the Greek masks of
tragedy and comedy to represent theater. Maybe a mask can both
hide AND reveal, to the right beholder.
When Rose Findley entered the Dragon's Lair gift
shop, the smell of incense assaulted her, and she sneezed. Because it
was off on a side street, she’d never noticed the place before, but
she’d received a flyer in the mail and decided to check it out. The
center aisles were filled with ceramic figurines of all sizes and
types—wild animals, human figures, and of course castles, magicians
and dragons. The shop immediately intrigued Rose. But she almost left
when she sneezed again. Then a mask on the back wall caught her eye.
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Temporarily
Detained by Wil A. Emerson. Technology is a
wonderful thing. Electron microscopes, hearing aids, handheld
calculators, supermarket price scanners... But technology scares
me sometimes, because of the potential for misuse.
“Duped.” The word echoed in my
ears. Slurred, it didn’t sound like me.
“We’re not boarding your row,
Sir. Let the other passengers through, please.” The gate attendant
smiled.
I squinted. Didn’t she hear me? Of
course she did. I looked at the paper in my hand.
Print out from
a computer? Legitimate boarding pass. Who did this? My secretary
always gave me a hard copy.
A hand tapped my shoulder, “I’ll
help you to your seat.”
“No help needed.” Again my voice
wobbled. “Where are we going?”
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Last
Night's Tragedy by Nicole Alexander. How easy it
is to lose the rapport, the connection, with teenaged children... the
connection that allows parents to look at them and know something really
is wrong. This is a poem, so I'm not putting an extract here. |
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Custom
Floor by Peggy Ehrhart. Sometimes the
clues to a crime are so obvious, you'll almost trip over them.
Superfly
disappeared?
The
words were on the tip of her tongue, but Anna bit them back.
She didn’t know Kenny Sockyma very well yet, and she wasn’t
sure he shared her irreverent sense of humor.
So instead she remarked, “That will be quite a loss for the
tribal council.”
But
in her mind, Ahote Kukuma had been the Hopi Superfly: braids to the
waist, fringed leather jacket, and enough turquoise to stock a souvenir
stand. If he’d been a
Harlem
black guy, he’d have had the biggest afro, the shiniest suit, and gold
everywhere—even in his teeth.
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When
the Fat Lady Screams by Stephen D. Rogers. I've
only tried to sit through a live opera performance once. Nearly
killed me. I guess it can be completely fatal for some people.
Inspector
Macafee woke when the house lights came on.
Turning to the rather large woman sitting next to him, he started to ask
how she had enjoyed the opera but until he noticed the small bullet hole
in the center of her forehead.
As the auditorium had already emptied, the Inspector took a moment to
examine the body before raising the alarm. There were no other
apparent wounds and the lack of a powder burn suggested she hadn't been
shot at close range.
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Half-Awake
by Dan Devine. Have you ever had that disorienting
feeling upon awakening, that you aren't where you are supposed to
be? Maybe it was when you were in a hotel room, or in a hospital
room, or after a night's heavy drinking. In this case, it's a good bit
more serious, and seriously frightening.
I was all alone in a place I didn‘t know.
It was a fact I’d had to face from the
moment I opened my eyes. I had discovered with a start that this was not
my room, not where I had fallen asleep last night. I immediately pressed
my lids back together and enthusiastically refused to believe what they
were showing me. Wishing didn’t work. When I opened up again I still
found myself in the bed of a stranger.
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The
Unbeliever by Jeremy Schneider. When did someone
try to ruin your Christmas for you by telling you that Santa wasn't real?
When you were eight years old? Ten? Twenty-three??? Well, just
as a wild supposition... what if Santa really IS real?
Lester pushed the power button on the Cadillac’s radio, cutting off
Jingle Bell Rock in mid-jingle. It seemed like all they played on the radio
this time of year was that damn song. It had a nice beat and it was catchy,
but after awhile, like too much ice cream, it started to give you a headache.
Speaking of which, the fat man in the trunk was being awfully quiet;
almost an hour of banging and hollering and now not so much as a peep. Maybe
he was finally resigned to the fact that any amount of pleading would not help
him escape his ultimate fate. Lester smiled. "Ultimate fate," he
said, "I kind of like that."
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