Fit to Die Read online

  “Okay, so Dads are shits the world over. We’re out from under them now, right?”

  But the scowl was still spreading. I tried again. “And at least you’ve got the money.” Curiosity gripped me, for I was getting used to the feel of Boss leather against my skin. “Or is that still all tied up?”

  With an effort, Patrick shook his head. “Dad had accounts all over the world, which I can access if I need to.” He paused, then patted his daypack beside him. “But I’ve got the entire life insurance policy in diamonds right here at my side.”

  I plunked my beer down with a jolt. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  He held his hands out, palms up, like a beggar. “I wanted the feel of it in my own hands. Not a little piece of plastic or a signature at the bank. I wanted something to hold on to, something to give me a good time. Two million dollars, right here in my hands—that’s got to give me a good time.” His eyes grew glassy. “Right?”

  The exercise, the rich pub food and the four pints of Murphy’s stout were taking their toll, and I figured I should get Patrick home before he started tossing hundred pound notes around. Later, I lay awake listening to his snoring and to the pounding of my heart. Two million dollars in diamonds lay in a bag only a metre from my feet. I could pack my stuff, steal half of them—I wouldn’t leave him with nothing—and be back in London before he even woke up. Then I could deck myself in Boss leather and surround myself with drooling girls to my heart’s content.

  Oh, the temptation.

  • • •

  By some miracle, the next day dawned sunny and Patrick awoke in fine spirits again. It was the darkness that seemed to haunt him, and he emerged from the shower singing. He opened his suitcase and handed me a shirt. Raw silk with an Armani label.

  “Here, I know you love this stuff. I’ll trade it for your Our Lady Peace shirt.”

  I took the Armani without protest. I suspected he’d never even heard of the Canadian rock band and just wanted to slum it for a while, but I was quite happy to play king for another day.

  To complete the image, I wore his Rockports again, and, with a chuckle, he donned my discount equivalent. Patrick had calculated that the hike along the coast would take us all day, so he sent me down to ask the landlady for a picnic lunch.

  When I returned, Patrick had our daypacks ready and he dangled the Jag’s keys in front of me. “Want to try it?”

  I gaped. “On these roads? On the wrong side?”

  “Where we’re going, the roads are only one lane wide. Come on, I know you’re dying to.”

  The car engine caught on the first try. My heart raced. I gave a jaunty wave to the landlady pruning her roses and accelerated down the highway. Beneath my hands, the car throbbed like a sexy woman. It was magic, as tempting as the diamonds sitting in the little bag by my side. Patrick didn’t understand the seductive lure of his life.

  He spread the map out and directed me through a maze of little roads, and when we finally broke through the hedgerows, we found ourselves in a field of parked cars. Ahead of us stretched a rugged expanse of red rock, heather and coarse scrub, cropped close by wandering sheep and ponies. In a jagged inlet, I could just glimpse the plunging drop and the jets of white foam below. My stomach lurched.

  Patrick jumped out and pulled our daypacks from the car. The wind in his hair and the scent of roiling surf seemed to give him energy. Tossing his bag over his shoulder, he set off towards the cliff top, where I could just make out a narrow path meandering along the edge.

  I gave the car one last pat, pocketed the keys, and went after him. Once I’d found my feet on the rocky soil and learned to look ahead into the distance rather than over the edge, I relaxed enough to enjoy the hike. Gulls wheeled overhead, and Patrick enthusiastically pointed out the puffins and other shore birds perched on ledges in the cliff face. I could never tell one bird from another but accepted Patrick’s word that we were witnessing a rare sight.

  By noon, we had reached the tip of the peninsula, where we could see out over the water to a large island off the shore. The cliff top was rounded and fell away to outcroppings of rock further down. Patrick turned off the main path and called up to me.

  “Come on, there’s a natural ledge down here. We can eat our lunch and watch the birds.”

  I hesitated before beginning to pick my way down the slope. The grass was thick and held my sandals well, but even so, my heart was pounding by the time I reached the ledge. Patrick cracked open a beer and peered out over the ocean, which churned and seethed like something alive.

  “Between here and the island, that’s Jack Sound, one of the most treacherous stretches of water along the coast. The tides funnel into the narrows at great speed and suck everything in with them. Boats trying to get through are dashed against the rocks. God, look at the power of that water!”

  His word was good enough for me. I wasn’t anxious to look over the edge. But after lunch, Patrick studied the cliff below and began very slowly to pick his way down. Far below him, the black ocean threw itself against the rocks, shooting plumes of foam high into the air.

  “Awesome!” Patrick shouted over the roar. “Come on! It gives you such a rush!”

  “No thanks.” I felt foolish, a prisoner of my fear. When I was twelve, I’d stood on a high diving board, trembling and crying while Adolf taunted me from below. I’d backed down, but his word “pissypants” had rung in my ears for years. I studied the slope. Patrick stood on another ledge, safe and without fear. He was beckoning. Not taunting me, but eager to share his joy. Which was rare, I knew.

  I left our packs on the ledge and began to inch my way down the slope. My hands clutched at passing sedge as stones slipped beneath my feet. My legs quivered from the strain, but gradually I drew nearer till I stood at his side. His eyes danced as he pointed along the cliff to our left.

  “See that little cave? I think there’s a bird’s nest inside. If we go along this little ledge, I bet we can see inside.”

  “Along that ledge? Are you crazy?” The ledge was barely two feet wide and wet with spray from the surf below.

  Patrick eyed me closely. “You’re afraid of heights, aren’t you?”

  “No, I—I just don’t go into orgasms over some old bird.”

  “Just follow me, and put your feet exactly where I do. I promise you’ll be fine.”

  He set out before I could object, and I stood frozen, watching him pick his way slowly along the cliff, gripping the jagged rock with his hand to steady himself. My hands turned clammy, and the surf pounded in my ears.

  Patrick turned. “It’s a chough! And I think there may be eggs!”

  In his excitement, his foot slipped on the wet ledge, and he fell to his knees. For an instant I thought he’d plunge to his death, but then he grabbed the cliff face and crouched motionless on the ledge.

  “Patrick?” His voice was frail against the roar of the surf. “I twisted my ankle. Help.”

  Help! He had to be kidding. He was stuck on a flimsy ledge above a precipice, inches from death. What good would two of us be, inches from death? I’d have to go for help.

  I thought of the diamonds and the Jag waiting above. Peered at the sea below…

  “Help,” came his voice again, even weaker. I looked down at his rigid frame, swore, and began to make my way down towards him. Sliding one foot at a time, testing each toehold, inching my hands over the rock face, wrapping my fingers around each tiny knob. I didn’t look down. I didn’t even look ahead to Patrick’s face. I stared at the wall and pressed its rough surface against my cheek. After an eternity, I reached him.

  “I just need to lean on your arm,” he said. “Then I can walk without putting much weight on it.”

  I braced myself and extended my arm so he could pull himself up.

  “Ready?” His voice was tense.

  I risked a nod. Patrick grabbed my arm and pulled hard. Instantly I was thrown off balance, my foot slipped and I felt myself going over the edge. In that instant, I caugh
t a glimpse of Patrick’s face, alight with triumph as he tried to wrench himself free.

  Shock jolted through me. On blind instinct I clutched at him, every inch of me fighting to survive. My free hand caught a jagged tooth of rock and my feet found a toehold on the wall beneath the ledge. I clutched Patrick’s arm and pulled for my life. Suddenly his body shifted and slithered over the edge. Pain shot through my arm as he fell, held only by my hand clamped to his wrist.

  He flailed about, vainly seeking a grip on the rock. His face, upturned to me, was white as death, and his eyes bulged.

  “God, Patrick, help me!” he gasped.

  I hung on despite the pain screaming through my fingers. Had he really tried to push me off? Had I really seen triumph in his eyes? Why? And if so, why should I save him? I could just open my fingers and let him plummet to certain death on the rocks below. It would be so easy.

  No one knew he was here. No one even knew who he was. He was wearing my clothes, and I could throw my backpack over with him. Just some poor lonely Canuck who’d taken a wrong step along the top of the cliff.

  And I would walk away with the identity of a millionaire, a car to die for, and two million dollars in untraceable gems in my bag.

  Surely that had been triumph I’d seen in his eyes. He’d tried to play me for a sucker, and no one did that to me. Not ever again. “Help me, buddy,” Patrick said, stretching up his free hand.

  “Fuck you,” I said. And I let him go.

  • • •

  The sun had nearly set over the distant hills by the time the Jag purred back up to the Bed and Breakfast. I’d considered not coming back. After all, I had Patrick’s backpack with his diamonds, passport and papers. My own papers were in my backpack, now floating with his body out to sea.

  But I had to make sure Patrick had left no telltale evidence at the inn. In the twilight I spotted the row of shiny cars parked along the edge of the house, but thought nothing of them. I climbed out of the Jag, slung Patrick’s bag over my shoulder and headed for the front door. My legs felt like rubber and my heart thumped sickly in my chest. That’s to be expected, I told myself. You’ve had a harrowing day, and it’s not every day you let a man die. You’ll get over it.

  I crossed the threshold and caught sight of the landlady behind her desk. She wore a glare, not her usual smile at the sight of me.

  “That’s him,” she said.

  Four figures emerged from the shadows of the sitting room. Two uniforms, two dark suits. Four gold badges, glinting in the light from the desk.

  “Patrick Johannsen?”

  I turned, a denial stuck in my throat, but before I could form it, cuffs were snapped around my wrists. Incredulity rushed through my mind. How could they possibly know?

  “What’s going on?”

  “You’re under arrest for the murders of Richard and Beatrice Johannsen.” The suit had the same Boston twang as Patrick. “It took us a while to track you down, son, but you should never have underestimated the power your father has, even from the grave.”

  BARBARA FRADKIN works as a child psychologist during the day, which gives her plenty of inspiration for her favourite night-time activity, plotting murders. Her dark, compelling short stories have appeared in the previous Ladies’ Killing Circle anthologies, as well as in several magazines, and her debut detective novel, Do or Die, featuring Police Inspector Michael Green, was published in 2000 by RendezVous Press. A sequel, Once Upon a Time, is due out in 2002.

  GRUDGE MATCH

  THERESE GREENWOOD

  Of course one feels for the late—though, let’s face it, unlamented—Harry Pilgrim, but nothing beats a little armchair detecting. It makes a girl’s heart thump.” The girl in question, Miss Case Doyle, was in high spirits as she leaned across the bar towards Gunboat Merkley. He would not have been surprised to see her pull a magnifying glass and Sherlock Holmes hat out of the overstuffed little sack she called a purse.

  “Think of it, Gunboat,” she said. “Comfortably ensconced in her beloved watering hole, the beautiful but brainy sleuth mulls over the unsolved mystery with a dispassion brought on by the passage of time. Witnesses are gob-smacked as she reveals the now screamingly obvious pattern that left the local flatfoots flat-footed. There is absolutely nothing I would enjoy more, you can take that to the bank.”

  Gunboat would have put five to one this was not strictly true. Miss Doyle enjoyed a lot of things. Take that crazy jazz whooping out of the new Victrola the boss had brought back from Rochester, and that loopy hat with the scarlet feather that came from no bird he had ever seen, and the martini she was lapping up like a kitten at the cream pitcher. And the boss. She liked the boss. But Gunboat would not have laid odds on how much. She was a dark horse that way. Look at the handsome pill stringing her along now.

  “It’d take a month of Sundays to sort through all the jokers who wanted to kill Pilgrim,” said the pill, one Lester Ketcheson. He was so right about that. Harry Pilgrim was dead six years, but even tonight, you could swing a stick in the speakeasy and hit a half-dozen people who had wanted to do the chump in. It bothered Gunboat, though, that after all this time the boss was still the odds-on favourite. Oh well, he thought, at least the boys in the backroom kept Ketcheson steady at two-to-one.

  “And here you are, Les,” said Miss Doyle, “back at the scene of the crime after six years. You must have some vital but overlooked clue that once known will reveal all.”

  “Wish I could help,” Ketcheson said agreeably. “But I had just popped in to conduct a little business and take the boat home before that crumb Pilgrim bought the farm.” He was watching his language in front of a lady or he would have used a different word for crumb. But those years in stir had not turned Ketcheson crude. He was still a fine-looking, loose-jointed know-it-all, wearing his hat, if you called that lousy piece of felt a hat, indoors to hide the work of the prison barber. His jacket was a dog’s breakfast, too, lopsided like it was buttoned wrong. Gunboat supposed he hadn’t had time to get a snazzier one, given that he had only been sprung that morning.

  “The most interesting part of the puzzle is the gunshot, of course,” said Miss Doyle. “It’s something right out of a melodrama. A pair of doomed lovers bursts into the room screaming blue murder about a body by the croquet hoops. And then the topper, a shot rings out. I hear the girl fainted, which must have been a lovely touch. It really happened that way, didn’t it, Gunboat? It isn’t a bit of embroidery stitched on over the years?”

  It wasn’t. It had been a helluva scene, the room more or less quiet with the orchestra taking a break. Then Pilgrim’s son and the young housemaid Harry Jr. was so nuts about ran screaming in. The pair had just calmed down enough to gasp out something about a murder when the gunshot blasted outside.

  “You couldn’t touch that for dramatic effect,” Miss Doyle said with satisfaction. “A gunshot after the body is discovered. As a plot twist it is second to none.”

  “Somebody was just making sure the old crumb was really dead,” said Ketcheson, tugging at the frayed collar of his open-necked shirt. “Harry Pilgrim was an A-one louse. You’d have had to stand in line to do him in, and the line was pretty long that night.”

  True enough, Gunboat thought. It had been a big crowd, even for a Friday. Back then Pilgrim’s Rest had been a high-class club for smug folk who wore badges on their coats. They’d thought a lot of Harry Pilgrim then because he did not smoke, drink, bet, chew gum or talk loudly. It didn’t matter he was mean as cat’s piss. They came in the dozens, sailing pricey boats up to the dock, liking that the hotel was on an island in the St. Lawrence River, for the exclusive use of rich people fishing a little, shooting a little and gossiping a lot.

  Things had changed after the War, but the private locale was an even bigger draw now Prohibition had turned it into a gin joint. They still came in the dozens, still sailing pricey boats, but now they wanted to smoke, drink, gamble and brush up against wickedness. Now the smug folks thought a lot of the boss because he ne
ver boasted, never flirted with a man’s wife, never took a drink from his own bar and was suspected of killing the previous owner. Tonight, with the Dempsey fight to come on the radio, they came because they thought the boss had once fixed a big-time heavyweight scrap.

  The boss, as always, looked like the rumours had never laid a glove on him. There was a fresh nosegay in the narrow lapel of his fitted double-breasted jacket, his pants were creased and cuffed in the smartish way he had worn even before the Prince of Wales made it the rage, and his shirt was a brilliant, crisp white. He seemed almost merry as he walked up to Stevie Pounder, the serious-looking lad donning the radio’s ear pieces and twiddling the dials on the fat wooden box as if his life depended on bringing in the fight. The boss put Stevie at ease with one of the Cuban cigars special-ordered four to a box labelled “Reginald Ashe”. Gunboat noticed the boss had lit his third stogie tonight, and that he was in no hurry to talk to Ketcheson.

  Ketcheson had been cooling his heels for half an hour, although a nice half-hour inching his stool closer to Miss Doyle, pretending to look at her newspaper for the poop on the Dempsey fight. Not that they did much reading. She was a born talker, going on about a new pair of boots she had ordered, about learning to shoot at her papa’s knee, about Dempsey’s right hand, and about the night Harry Pilgrim bought the farm. She had made what she called “a tableau of the crime scene” with now-empty martini glasses standing for the folks Gunboat had seen that night when he went down to the boathouse to fetch a twelve-bottle case of real French champagne.

  “The night air must have been especially invigorating,” Miss Doyle was saying, as she gave her funny tableau the once over. “Everyone and his brother was out for a stroll. The band was taking a break by this bottle of vermouth. Darling Reggie had slipped behind the soda siphon. Stevie Pounder’s father was out by the ashtray helping the boatman tie up the launch. Harry Junior and that girl he was so mad about were stealing a minute somewhere around the Beefeater, although I guess they don’t have to steal any more. I heard they got married on the proceeds when Reggie bought this joint.”