Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 32, No. 13, Mid-December 1987

Double Crosses by Elana Lore

Collin Hartman felt strange killing Barton. He didn’t even know the man’s first name. He had this weird idea that murder was a personal thing, sort of like sex, where you were supposed to do it to somebody you knew. But in this case, it was a matter of not having any other alternatives that had driven him to using the marble rolling pin to flatten the fellow.

He had been surprised when he hadn’t been able to talk Barton out of calling the police, but not panicked. He had taken a deep breath, like they’d taught him in improv class, and the idea had just occurred to him. A little voice had said, “Collin, this is your only way out of this one,” and he had obeyed.

He had looked around the elegant kitchen — gleaming blue and white tile floors, teak center cooking island, shiny copper pots and pans — and had seen the glint of sunlight reflecting off the rolling pin on the counter. It was like a sign from above. And Collin firmly believed in signs. He had picked up the rolling pin and used it before Barton had time to react. His motion classes had come in handy. He was a smooth dancer, too.

He felt as he had when he’d had that car accident when he’d been in high school. Just before the impact, his whole life had flashed before him. This time it was different. Instead of his past, the two alternate presents sort of rushed out, like on a computer printout. The bottom line was, if Barton lived, he would go to jail. If Barton died, he could take the money and go away with Ariana.

Collin didn’t know what you were supposed to do after you murdered someone, so he went to the bathroom, washed his hands, looked at his face in the mirror to see if it looked any different (slightly flushed, but basically the same), and then decided he needed a nice hot cup of tea.

Ethel Berg was a kook — an aging opera star who fugued in and out of her starring roles in the middle of a conversation — but she had a nice apartment, and had supplied him with plenty of good food. He felt bad about leaving a dead body in her kitchen, seeing as how it was the only room in the house that had been renovated since about the American Revolution, but at the moment he didn’t know what else to do with the corpse.

Collin put water on to boil, rooted around in the dishwasher for the mug he had been using, then rooted some more in the cabinets for tea. Ethel had left him a wide selection. He decided the full-bodied flavor of English Breakfast was what he needed, so he sloshed some water around in the teapot to heat it up, then shoveled tea into the pot.

Collin was still a little bit high from the confrontation with Barton and the violent murder, so he bounced around the kitchen, somewhat at a loss for something to do while the tea steeped. He thought variously about fixing a sandwich, even though he didn’t have much of an appetite, calling Ariana, who was at work, and just walking out of the apartment. Ethel was due back this evening, so he was already packed and ready to go, as soon as he washed the dishes from tea — and maybe disposed of the body. He was unsure now about leaving it.

He sat at the little alcove table and sipped from his mug, occasionally glancing surreptitiously at the corpse, which had unfortunately landed at the foot of the table.

Collin had been pulling the old apartment scam. Between the acting lessons, dates with Ariana, the visits to tea leaf readers, astrologers, and psychics to find out what was wrong with their relationship, and a couple of bad days at Belmont, he had gone through most of his earnings from his last caper.

Collin had spent months planning the apartment scam, babysitting countless house plants, pets, and collections of whatever it was that rich people who went to Florida and Europe for extended periods of time collected, looking for the right mark.

There’s a real housing shortage in New York, and prices are astronomical, so a nice apartment that’s selling under market can attract hundreds of prospective tenants. At least that’s how Collin had figured it. Also, it had been done before and written up in the papers, so he had a good idea of how to proceed.

Collin had registered with this house-sitting service under one of his stage names and had gotten plenty of good jobs, but there were certain restrictions. It was hard to even have an overnight guest of the opposite sex in a doorman building, so those things were out. And some of his clients had nosy neighbors who kept bringing their own hairy little pets over for play dates with the countless Fidos and Fifis that populated the Upper East Side. He had fairly jumped, therefore, when the opportunity to take an apartment in the East 50’s for two weeks — brownstone, no doorman, eccentric old lady w/houseplants no pets — had come up.

He had spent the first week doing research on the place. It was a floor-through, which meant some privacy from other tenants, and the super, Barton, had the whole block to take care of, so he wasn’t around much.

The second week he had placed the ad in the Sunday Times. He was very careful — the apartment wasn’t undervalued too much, and the furniture being as old and motheaten as it was, it was easy to say his elderly aunt had just died and he was trying to unload the apartment so he could get back to L.A. and his acting career.

The calls had started coming in on Saturday evening, right after the early editions of the paper were unloaded at Grand Central Station. By Sunday evening, he had raked in almost twenty-five thousand, a large percentage of it in cash-under-the-table bribes.

Unfortunately, while he had been out at the bank depositing the money in his account, one of his marks had come back to look at the apartment again (pushy New Yorkers) and had run into Barton, who was repairing a faucet in the apartment below.

Damn.

Collin took one last, cautious sip from his mug, careful to leave a slosh at the bottom for the tea leaves, and twirled the mug three times, just like Madame Dora did. He couldn’t very well call her right now and explain the situation, so he tried to read the patterns himself but he didn’t see anything that made sense to him.

He glanced at his watch. It was almost three. Ethel was due back around six. That gave him three hours to come up with a plan for disposing of Barton’s body. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he couldn’t just leave him there. Ethel might have a heart attack finding him, and he was afraid he might have given her some clue to his real identity when they had met.

He checked under the sink for garbage bags. Barton was a little guy, but still too big for a regular Hefty. Maybe a lawn and leaf bag. He hied himself down to the local supermarket, bought a ten-pack and some rubber gloves, and raced back, wondering what he’d do with the body once he bagged it.

Trash day was tomorrow, but it might leak, or attract animals before then. And God forbid some bag person coming along looking for empty soda cans or food. No, this required a car. And then he thought of Barton’s. Barton drove an old Mercedes — probably had a brother in the business, Collin thought.

Collin frisked the corpse, removing his I.D., the Walkman, and the key ring Barton kept on his belt, about seventy dollars from his wallet, and a nice diamond pinky ring that he thought he could have sized to fit him, then stuffed Barton into the trash bag, all scrunched up. It was a tight fit, but he had gotten the job done before Barton had started to stiffen up too much. He wasn’t too keen on touching him, since he was cooling off a bit, but what can you do? It was an emergency. He walked around the bag a couple of times, realized it looked very much like there was a body inside, and lifted a couple of ancient towels from the bathroom to round out the shape a bit.

By now it was almost five o’clock, and Collin was beginning to perspire. Sooner or later he was going to have to go out. He had cleaned the apartment up the night before. Now he did a quick swipe of all the surfaces he could find, trying to remove fingerprints, and then stacked his belongings by the door. He did a couple of trial runs, taking trash out to the containers in the basement well by the front door. Fine. Rush hour was starting, and the street was full of pedestrians.

He took a walk around the block, found Barton’s car not far away, went back to the apartment, took a few deep breaths, and started out with his backpack, his suitcase, and the body on a king-sized luggage carrier. He prayed the bag wouldn’t break.

Things went fine at first. No problem. Then he hit a rough piece of pavement and the body shifted. Collin almost wet his pants. He waited until a young couple with briefcases passed him, then righted his burden and went on, more carefully this time.

He fumbled with the trunk lock — Jeez, Barton carried a lot of keys — all the while trying to keep himself from looking around to see if he was being watched, and deposited his trash bag, trying to lift it as though it had clothes in it instead of a body wrapped in terrycloth. He slammed the trunk, went around to the back door and deposited his backpack, the suitcase, and the luggage carrier.

Collin hastily went back to the apartment, cleaned up the blood, the rolling pin, and the sink, and gave the place one last fond glance before he left. He stuck Ethel’s keys in her mailbox, as they had agreed, and went out to the Mercedes.

Collin hadn’t driven in a long time — there wasn’t much need to in New York, and he couldn’t afford car insurance anyway — but he managed to get the car revved up and going. He raced down to his apartment, took a shower, and tried to get Ariana on the phone. He wasn’t sure what to do with the car, but he thought he should leave it somewhere. Barton wasn’t exactly going to be reporting it stolen, and he lived alone, so there wasn’t much danger for a while of anyone’s noticing it was gone. He certainly had plenty of time to get to the airport with Ariana tonight if he could persuade her to come with him.

He didn’t see much problem with that. After all, Iosop, the psychic he’d seen last week, had said he saw Ariana getting married and going away, which had cheered Collin up immensely.

Meanwhile, in another brownstone, this one in the elegant Murray Hill section of New York in the East 30’s, on a quiet, treelined street where every other mahogany door had the brass nameplate of a medical practice or a foundation, a distinguished looking middle-aged man, elegantly dressed, was fumbling with a Phillips head screwdriver in the fading evening sunlight. The street was deserted, and even the sounds of traffic were distant, muted.

“Damn,” he whispered as a tiny screw resisted his efforts. The brass doorplate read The Porphyria Foundation, est. 1922. Inside, he could hear the shuffle of boxes and furniture being moved.

A beautiful young woman — dark-haired, olive-skinned, with the palest of violet eyes — opened the door cautiously from the other side and glanced up and down the street. Seeing no one, she stepped up on tiptoes to kiss him, pressing her body into his.

“We’re almost done, Carl.”

“Okay, Ariana,” he whispered back. “Call Gunther and have him come with the van now. I’ll help you move things out front when I’m done here.”

The phone rang at eight that night, waking Ethel Berg from a sound sleep. She was so tired that she hadn’t even bothered to unpack. She pulled herself to a sitting position, fumbled for her glasses on the nightstand, and glanced foggily at the bedside clock.

“Hi,” the voice said. “I copied down the phone number when I was there yesterday, and thought I’d call and see if I can move in a few days early... Who is this?”

“You have the wrong number,” she said, dropping the phone back on the receiver with a yawn.

A few seconds later it rang again, and the caller repeated his little spiel.

“Young man, I’m afraid you have the wrong number. There is no apartment available here.”

“Is this 555-1916?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, it is.”

“And the address is 1607 East 52nd Street, apartment three?”

“Yes.”

“Well... the man I talked to yesterday said his Aunt Ethel had died and he was renting her apartment.”

Ethel, by then, had gotten her mental processes in some semblance of order, but when she figured out what the caller was saying, she began to feel her face go pale under the layers of now-caked-on old-lady face powder.

“Well, my name is Ethel, but I’m certainly not dead, nor do I have any intention of giving up my apartment.” And with that she slammed down the receiver again.

After the third such call, she removed the jack from the wall, vowing, if she could remember to do so, to call Mr. Barton in the morning.

Ariana and Collin had met at an acting class that was so far over on the West Side that it was practically in the Hudson River. The building was shabby, in one of those Hell’s Kitchen neighborhoods where there were only spotty efforts at renovation, and a lot of those seemed to be permanently weighted down by several layers of spray-painted graffiti.

It had been love at first sight for Collin, but Ariana had seen it as an opportunity. For her, life was full of opportunities, most of them wearing pants. Back in those days, she had been into lifting credit cards and small-time stuff like that. Collin had been a big help to her, especially when they’d been working hotels.

They had lost track of each other for a couple of years, until Collin had run into her at a sidewalk cafe near Lincoln Center a few months before.

Collin, of course, wanted to pick up where they had left off, but Ariana had made it clear that she had gone on to bigger and better things.

The effort to win her back had been more or less a matter of proving fiscal soundness, as Collin saw it. Ariana was still into money, so he had to get some — fast. According to her, she had married a wealthy but elderly man who had died suddenly, leaving her independently wealthy. She was into charity work now.

Collin sensed a false note in there somewhere, but he didn’t have a good enough ear to pick up on which one it was. Ariana certainly looked good — better than she had before. Her figure had filled out some, but she still had those pale violet eyes, the silky dark hair and exotic complexion, the pouty lips...

God, he lusted after her. But she had been so distant in the past few weeks...

Collin tried to call Ariana again, but got no answer. She didn’t even have her machine on. Suddenly, he got a strange mental picture of her at work. Maybe a portent, hm? he thought, reaching for his Manhattan directory to look up her number at the Foundation.

Ariana was a little bit sweaty, and her jeans were covered with dust. Her eyes met Carl’s across the now empty office as Gunther left with the last load, fully paid off and ready to roll. It was a mesmerizing, predatory look — a hungry look, actually.

She threw her head back, shaking dust out of her hair, then crossed the room to him and began to disrobe, those haunting eyes never leaving his.

“On the floor?” he said with a quirky smile, eyebrows raised. “We can be seen from the street, you know.”

“One last time, my dear,” she said, mouthing his neck desperately.

“Are you sure it’s been disconnected?” Collin asked the operator. “It’s not just out of service or something?”

“I’m positive,” the operator said firmly.

“Was there a forwarding number?”

“Like I told you, no.” Collin heard an abrupt click in his ear.

About half an hour later, he parked the Mercedes in the next block and walked over to the Porphyria Foundation offices. The sun had set hours ago, and the night had gotten chilly. Aside from a few bag people lying on grates in the street to keep warm, the whole area was deserted. The street lights cast an eerie glow, and the occasional odd noise made him jump.

He felt the front door. He could see where the plaque had been — and that it was no longer there. He stood on a railing and leaned over to look into the window. There was enough light to see that the place was empty — no furniture, no nothing. Collin had a feeling that Something Was Happening — something he wasn’t going to like.

He went back to the car finally, and decided to drive around for a while to think things over. Before long, he found himself in Ariana’s block on the Upper West Side.

He parked the car, got out, and went to a phone booth to call her again. There was no answer, but while he was there, he saw Ariana leave her building arm in arm with a tall, elegant-looking gentleman. Unfortunately, they were walking straight toward him. As they approached the phone booth, he averted his face and sank into the shadows to avoid being seen. When they passed, he realized who the man was, and why he looked so familiar. It was Dr. Montgomery from the Foundation. That certainly changed the picture.

He wondered if she was pulling a scam on him. He wouldn’t have been surprised. He thought about following the two of them, but decided that was childish. He went back to the car, pulling his jacket up around his shoulders, and waited for them to return.

At about one, the two of them strolled back, arm in arm. He watched her window for a while. The lights stayed on until almost two. He waited for Dr. Montgomery to leave, but he didn’t. Feeling more dejected than he had thought possible, Collin went home, a plan forming in his mind.

Very few people know there are organizations that rate charities to make sure they’re not putting all the dough they’ve collected into their own pockets. But several exist, and Marcus Schmidt, a thickly bespectacled little man who prided himself on balancing his own checkbook down to the penny each month, even if it took hours, worked for one of them as a field agent.

Despite the fact that Marcus had majored in accounting, he also prided himself on his knowledge of the classics in music and literature and other areas. In other words, his mother had wanted him to be a doctor, and he had failed her miserably, so he was trying to make amends.

Marcus was a very frustrated man in many ways, and he took it out mostly on those who didn’t live up to his high standards of charitable distribution, since he didn’t have a wife to beat or a dog to kick. Those who knew what was really cooking in the charitable foundation world knew that his was not the largest or most respected of the monitoring agencies and showed him the door when he got really obnoxious. Which was why his boss had lately sent him out to the newer and smaller organizations — ones that couldn’t fight back as easily.

It’s hard to say when Marcus first figured out that the Porphyria Foundation wasn’t exactly kosher. It’s easy to figure that, wherever he is now, he’d like people to think he glommed onto it the minute he heard the name, but those who knew what a jerk he was suspected it had come much later — like right before Dr. Montgomery had raised the little silver gun and pointed it at his chest. There was a certain wry look in Marcus’s eyes there at the last — one that showed an understanding and peculiar sense of humor that probably would have made Marcus’s mother proud. Unfortunately, there was no one to see it except Carl Montgomery, and he had other things on his mind.

It had been a long day for Collin, and he was exhausted. He fell asleep almost immediately after setting his alarm.

The following morning he was up bright and early, full of determination. He dressed in his best casual stuff — real preppy clothes, with an old-money gold and blue color scheme — and drove back up to Ariana’s apartment.

Luck was with him — he found a parking space on the first turn around the block. As he pulled in, he saw Ariana and Dr. Montgomery coming out of the apartment, suitcases in hand.

“Hi,” he said, walking up to the stoop.

Ariana’s face went through some changes — surprise, guilt, and a few other things — as she looked back and forth from one man to the other.

“Hi,” she said finally, weakly, and introduced the two men. They both acted cool. “I’m sorry I can’t talk to you now, Collin, but I’ve got to get Dr. Montgomery to the airport in a hurry.”

“Oh,” Collin said, surprised. “Vacation?”

Ariana thought about it for a minute. Collin could see the wheels turning. “No. Business trip.”

He thought for a minute himself. “Well, I have a meeting in the neighborhood this morning, and thought I’d stop by for a visit.”

He glanced at his watch. “I’m a little bit early still,” he said.

His face brightened. “Tell you what, though. You’re going to have a hard time finding a cab this time of the morning. Why don’t you take my car? I won’t be needing it until later this afternoon.”

Ariana looked at him suspiciously for a moment, during which time he tried to look angelic. Or at least innocent.

“I didn’t know you had a car,” she said finally.

“Yeah. Just got it. It’s an old Mercedes. I like to think of it as a classic, but it’s got a few years to go until it really is. Honestly, I don’t need it right now, so you’re welcome to it.”

Ariana and the distinguished doctor exchanged glances, then seemed to come to a decision. “Okay,” Ariana said, picking up one of the suitcases. “Where is it?”

He helped Dr. Montgomery carry the luggage, pretending not to notice that some of it looked as though it belonged to Ariana. When they got to the car, Collin fumbled around, pretending he couldn’t find the trunk key.

“Well, the luggage will fit in the back seat, won’t it?” he said at last.

“Sure.”

They stuffed the suitcases in, and Collin handed the keys to Dr. Montgomery.

When they had left, Collin sat on the curb and thought for a while, making sure all the pieces fit. When he was finally sure he’d gotten it right, he got up, went back to the corner phone booth, and dialed 911.

“Hi, I want to report a stolen car. The name is Barton. No, I’m not at home... grey Mercedes... yes, the plate numbers are... East Side... in front of my building... just noticed it was gone a few minutes ago... probably still in the area... thanks a lot.”

Collin was feeling pretty good now, so he splurged and took a taxi home.

In the rather dingy offices of Manhattan South, Homicide Division, Detective John Hrudic was attracting more attention from his colleagues than usual. A tall, extraordinarily handsome blond with big blue eyes that inspired the confidence of women and suspects alike, he was holding the telephone receiver to his ear, choking and gasping until the tears began to roll down his face.

Detective Hrudic stood out plainly from his fellow police detectives not only because of his appearance but because of his immaculate way of dressing. Now, though, it was hard to see the gorgeousness. He was surrounded by a swirl of grey — wall, desks, chairs, faded memos and directives, and foul smoke from his partner’s cigar. His partner, a rumpled, food-stained excuse for a human by the name of Flaherty, who usually turned a deaf ear to pleas from his cohorts to send his beloved smokes down to the M.E.’s office for an autopsy, started fanning the air desperately with his hand and moved away from Hrudic’s desk, anticipating a medical emergency.

Hrudic, in between chokes, managed to gasp into the receiver, “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of joke?”

There was a pause, during which time he fumbled for his handkerchief and mopped the tears from his face.

“Okay,” he said, trying to regain his composure. “We’ll be right there.”

Hrudic motioned to Flaherty. “Let’s roll. We’ve got a homicide in Murray Hill.”

He paused in his doorway and called out, “Anybody got a dictionary here?” By some freak accident there actually was one. He paused to look up a word, started laughing again, and left, Flaherty in his wake, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. He knew from experience that whatever it was, it would be good, but he’d have to wait until Hrudic was ready to share it.

Flaherty didn’t have to wait long. The condition of the body was a dead giveaway. Marcus Schmidt had become rather crumpled up in the little storage closet overnight, but even Flaherty could see that there was a stake through his heart, which gave him a clue. These unusual ones were a lot more exciting than the run of the mill Saturday night knifings and shootings. They got good press coverage, for one thing. Flaherty had had his picture in the New York Post once before on another case. He liked talking to reporters, using his special cop vocabulary. He was really fond of the word perp. It had a classy ring.

Hrudic was still having a hard time controlling himself. Flaherty watched his ribs quake as he tried to keep from laughing during the rookie cop’s recap of the events that had led to the call and, later, as he tried to hold a coherent conversation with the elderly blue-haired secretary who had arrived at the office and found the body.

Flaherty wondered how the perp had gotten the victim to hold still long enough to get the stake in, but decided it was better not to ask, under the circumstances. He was sure Hrudic would have a good explanation. In the back of his mind some of Flaherty’s synapses were trying desperately to connect; he knew the stake in the heart bit had been used before, but he couldn’t remember the specific case.

About an hour later, when they were returning to the car, Hrudic took a look around, didn’t see anyone particularly paying attention, and did a quick Bela Lugosi imitation, hulking over Flaherty, which he did anyway, sticking out his teeth, and trying to look maniacal, whispering, “I am going to bite your neck.”

Flaherty lunged out of the way and darted Hrudic a now-you’ve-really-lost-it kind of look. Suddenly, the fog cleared and the little marbles all settled into place. “Nah,” he said, waving his hand. “Get outta here.”

Hrudic settled into the car. “Betcha fifty bucks the M.E. finds a silver bullet in his heart,” he said, finally letting himself go, laughing until the tears streamed freely down his face.

“No way,” Flaherty said, struggling into his seat belt.

“You know what else?” Hrudic said. “That place... it was some kind of foundation or something. But you know what the name of it was? The Porphyria Foundation. You know what porphyria is?”

Flaherty shook his head.

“It’s this disease.” He started gasping now. “It’s a real one. The medical examiner told me about it. Your gums pull back so it looks like you got big fangs. And your eyes get sensitive to sunlight so you can’t go outside. And then you get this allergic reaction to garlic and a craving for blood, because you got something wrong with your own.”

Hrudic tried to look serious for a moment. “Sound familiar to you?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

All Flaherty could think to say was “Get outta here” again, so he did, settling back into the seat of the car to think about vampires for a while.

Collin had made a hasty plane reservation to Hawaii. It was kind of short notice to get a passport to any good place — one that had jungles and stuff, where you could really get lost — so he decided to go someplace where he could soak up some UV’s and relax. He hadn’t bothered to unpack his suitcase from his house-sitting adventure, so all he had to do was toss in his swimming trunks and suntan lotion to make things complete.

He had about three hours until his plane took off — plenty of time for what he had in mind, which was to go to the precinct house as Barton and sign the stolen car report so Ariana would really be in trouble when they caught her. His apartment-super outfit was laid out on the bed, with Barton’s I.D. beside it on the nightstand. He changed hastily, dug around for subway tokens, and checked his appearance in the mirror.

He was Barton — keys jangling from his hip, belt hung low over his gut even though he didn’t really have one, stiff-legged kind of walk from carrying tools in his pocket. The only thing that was missing was the toothpick Barton occasionally sucked on, but Collin was afraid he’d get a splinter, or swallow it by accident.

He was pleased — it was a pretty good scam. It was her word against his that he wasn’t really Barton, and he’d be long gone by then. Ariana would probably have been proud of him for thinking it up, if she weren’t on the receiving end.

He spent a few minutes meditating, trying to get himself into character, then headed for the subway station.

It wasn’t that far, but before long, Collin’s back started to hurt from doing Barton’s funny walk. The pain and stiffness reminded him of how scrunched up Barton was in the trunk of the car, and he wondered if it hurt after you were dead.

Collin stopped, chills running up and down his spine. What if Barton wasn’t really dead? He wasn’t a doctor or anything — actually, most of his medical training came from watching General Hospital — and there could have been some signs of life he missed. It could be like those people who woke up in the middle of their funeral and opened the lid of their coffin. What if Barton started knocking on the trunk of the car when the cops pulled Ariana over? His skin started to feel cold and clammy and he began to walk a little slower.

The subway was quiet and cool and empty this time of day. Collin tried to check his appearance in the reflection of the window of the token booth as he went past, but it was too dark to see anything.

There weren’t any trains, so he had time to think about what he was doing. He was a good actor, but pretending to be Barton was giving him the creeps. He began to shiver in the semi-dark coolness of the station. Finally, he realized what the problem was — he was too deeply in character. He wasn’t doing Barton at all — he was doing Barton in the trunk of the car. The stiff-legged walk, the cold skin, and the absence of a reflection in the mirror all reminded him of scary late-night movies. He couldn’t remember whether it was zombies or vampires who acted like that, but the general idea was enough to scare him.

He felt the hair rise at the back of his neck, and he began to gasp for air, struggling to get out of his Barton persona in a hurry. He fled the station and raced back to the apartment.

Now he was sorry he’d given up the car. He couldn’t get the picture of Barton knocking on the trunk lid out of his mind, and he was anxious to get to the airport. He schlepped his suitcase out to the sidewalk hurriedly and raced to the corner for a taxi, stopping briefly at the Korean fruit stand for a newspaper to read on the way.

His eye was caught by the front page of the New York Post. A wedding picture of Ariana and Dr. Montgomery? What was that doing there? He felt suddenly disoriented.

He heard some abrupt words in Korean, or maybe Korean-accented English, and looked up. The man was holding out his hand. Collin stared at him blankly for a moment, then caught on and reached into his pocket for the thirty-five cents.

He paid the man and rushed out blindly to hail a taxi. He unfortunately got a driver with a nonstop mouth, but being a fairly good actor, he managed to keep one eye on the paper without rustling it while pretending to be hanging on the cabbie’s every word. Nevertheless, he didn’t really get the gist of what was going on until he got to the airport.

While he stood in line waiting to check in at the airline ticket counter, he reread the story, trying hard to concentrate.

Quick flashes jumped off the page at him, making his skin crawl: Ariana and Dr. Montgomery married for two months... Porphyria Foundation scam... body in the closet... five million dollar ripoff of wealthy contributors... catching plane to Rio... body in the trunk of the car... BODY IN THE TRUNK OF THE CAR! It hopped off the page and floated around on his retinas for a while. He blinked.

This changed things, and not for the better. How could he have been so stupid? Collin had some heavy thinking to do. He knew Ariana real well. She wasn’t the kind of woman to take a fall for anyone. She had probably already given his name to the cops... all of his names. And Ethel the flake... the pushy guy who wanted the apartment so bad... all those others who could identify him. He was in deep trouble.

He decided to get out of line, try to get a reservation under another name on another airline to another destination.

As he stooped down to hook the handle of his suitcase, he saw a large shadow over him. He looked up. A tall blond man in a black suit and cape, with fake Halloween fangs in his mouth and a sardonic look in his eyes, accompanied by a rumpled brown-checked suit lost in a swirl of cigar smoke, surrounded him. More or less.

The blond raised his arms slowly over his head, allowing the detective’s shield in his hand to fall open. He had shined his badge to a high gloss. As Collin squinted against the reflection, Hrudic said in his best imitation of a Transylvanian accent, “Ju arrrre underrr arrrest for the murrrder of Emanuel Barton. Ju have the rrrright to rrrremain silent...”

In the background, Flaherty tried to keep one eye on the suspect so he didn’t flee while Flaherty pretended to be somewhere — anywhere — else.