Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 39, No. 13, Mid-December 1994

How to Win at Russian Roulette by Ron Goulart

She resurfaced in his life at a few minutes after midnight on Halloween. Her right arm in a sling, barefooted, wearing an old terry cloth robe from a West Hollywood gym over a pair of peppermint striped pajamas that obviously weren’t hers, carrying her big black portfolio tucked up under her left arm, she appeared on the redwood porch of his cottage in Santa Rita Beach. The night smelled strongly of smoke, even though most of the fires that had been burning around Los Angeles that week had been put out. Her long blonde hair was tangled; her tan, freckled face had a smudge of soot across both prominent cheekbones.

“Trick or treat,” she said, smiling very tentatively.

“Go away, Casey,” Wes Goodhill told her. “Scram, hit the road.” He tried to shut the door on her but found that, somehow, he couldn’t.

“After all, Wes, I don’t have the hide of an ostrich, and when you talk to me like—”

“Rhinoceros.”

“Hum?”

“It’s a rhino that’s noted for its thick hide.” He made another unsuccessful attempt to make himself close her out.

“You’re making my efforts to deliver a sincere apology awfully darn difficult, Wes.”

“Sincere? You’re incapable of sincerity.”

“Okay, I admit that I fudged the truth about my relationship with Thor Swanson, yet—”

“Who in the name of god is Thor Swanson?”

“The Scandinavian Cheapskate Gourmet on cable,” answered Casey McLeod. “I remember telling you that I wasn’t dating him while you and I were living together, but actually I was. Because of my fear of an outburst of your terrible temper, though, I refrained from admitting it at the time.”

“I don’t have a terrible temper!”

“Oh, so? And yet you’re standing here on your doorstep howling like a chimpanzee at me.

“Banshee. It’s a banshee that howls.”

“Well, at least you admit you’re howling at me,” she said. “Anyhow, you might at least invite me in.”

“Wait now,” he said. “Didn’t you move out on me two years ago and declare that you’d never return?”

“Was it that recently? Seems longer ago.”

“Two years, five months, three weeks, but who’s counting? Go away now, quit darkening my door.”

“I can’t.

“Certainly you can. Simply hop back in your car and drive on home.”

“For one thing, I don’t have a car.”

Frowning, he squinted out at the curving street and the slanting night beach beyond. The dark Pacific was choppy tonight, and there was no sign of a car in the immediate vicinity. “How the hell’d you get here?”

“A very nice truck driver named... oh, you know, he has the same name as the man with the birds.”

“No, I don’t know. Somebody gave you a lift here? What happened to your Isuzu?”

“It exploded. Rasmussen.”

“What?”

“The man who was so sweet and drove me all the way from Maravilla Canyon was named Rasmussen.”

Wes took a slow, deep breath. “Why were you in Maravilla Canyon?”

“Well, as it turned out, I wish I hadn’t been,” she said and shrugged her left shoulder. “Can I set this darn portfolio down?”

“Sure, but outside my house.”

She leaned it against the doorjamb. “You see, and I thought you knew this, I was housesitting for Carlos and—”

“Who’s Carlos?”

“Well, Carlos Miranda, obviously.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You’ve certainly gone to seed in the — what did you say it was, two years? — in the two years since I saw you last. Working in animation at Sparey Art Studios has dumbed you down considerably, Wes,” she told him. “Carlos Miranda, as any literate human being knows, is a famous Latin American novelist. Just three years ago he won the Argentinean equivalent of the Pulitzer.”

“Congratulations. And you’ve been shacking up with this guy?”

“No, pay attention. I was housesitting for him and Carmelita, his lovely wife, while they did that publicity tour of Central America and then decided to spend a few weeks in Guatemala. I just don’t know how I’m going to tell them.”

“Tell them what?”

“About their lovely mansion in Maravilla Canyon — it burned to the ground, along with my car and their twin Mercedes cars and Ruffy.”

“Ruffy?”

“He was, you know, one of those frizzy little dogs. Poor dear thing.”

“What you’re claiming, Casey, is that the house you were looking after got caught in the canyon blaze? Leaving you homeless, without car or clothes?”

“I’m not claiming, damn it, I happen to be stating the absolute unblemished truth.”

“Unvarnished,” he corrected.

“So here I stand, a waif, an orphan of the storm, turning to my one and only true friend in all Greater Los Angeles, or in the whole darn entire state, for that matter, and you force me to stand outside with the fierce Santa Ana winds whistling through my BVD’s and accuse me, for gosh sake, of fibbing.”

“Fibbing? Holy moley, Casey, you are, as I know from long and painful experience, a champion liar and falsifier,” he told her. “For example, I still recall the time you persuaded me to hock your Grandmother Elsie’s pearl necklace, and then it turned out the thing actually belonged to a fading character actress in Santa Monica. You, how shall I politely state this, you borrowed the—”

“She gave it to me, the old biddy, to settle a bill for some artwork I did for her. Then she up and tried—”

“The bottom line is — I really and truly don’t trust you. We spent an interesting and entertaining couple of years together, Casey, but as the bards of long ago sang, ‘Them days is gone forever.’ ”

“Wes, please. I honestly don’t have any place else to go. Only for tonight, please, if you can put me up, I’ll be eternally grateful.”

“How long’s eternity with you? About a week and a half tops.”

She looked him up and down slowly. “I get it,” she said finally. “You really and truly were in love with me back then, and when I had to leave, for perfectly sensible reasons, it hurt you.”

“You’re very perceptive.” He stood there, watching the vast inscrutable ocean, uncertain whether to yell some more or start crying a little. Sighing, Wes moved back. “Okay, come on in.”

“Can you bring my portfolio? With my sprained wrist, it’s tough.”

“Sure.” He let her step over the threshold, then brought in the thick portfolio of artwork and shut the door. “How’d you hurt your wrist?”

“Trying to save Fluffy.”

“Who’s Fluffy?”

“I just told you, that poor little dog.”

“You said his name was Ruffy.”

“No, I wouldn’t have said a dumb thing like that, since the poor creature’s name was Fluffy. I ought to know because I used to take him for a walk through the wooded hills of the canyon every darn night.” She walked into his small, cluttered living room. “New television, same old sofa, more books piled up on everything. Why don’t you ever throw out those piles of comic books?”

He ignored her interior decorating suggestions and asked, “What are you working at these days?”

“Don’t you keep up with my career either?” She sat down in a fat armchair and let her pajamaed legs go wide.

“Wasn’t aware you had a career.”

“Hey, we’re friends again,” she reminded him. “I am, as I was when you and I were together, a first-rate cartoonist and—”

“First-rate isn’t how I’d rank your—”

“I’m still drawing my Bertha the Biker comic book for Roy Pomeroy’s Beachcomb Comics Press,” she continued. “I’ve also been doing a little modeling again and some acting.”

“What sort of acting?”

“Well, not in porno epics, if that’s what that goofy expression you’ve assumed is meant to imply, Wes. Honestly, now.” She shook her head, then leaned back. “I’ve been doing a few small parts on TV. Most recently on a show called Fat Cops, but it got canceled.”

“Fat Cops, huh? Mike wrote that. Or at least two of the four episodes they shot before it flopped.”

“Mike who?”

“Mike Filchock, my best friend. You remember him, don’t you?”

“The one who looks like Mickey Rooney with a facelift? The one who was always trying to come up with new excuses for patting my backside? Is that the Mike you mean?”

“The Mike I’m talking about, Casey, has often said he wouldn’t touch you with a barge pole.”

She gave a disdainful laugh. “It’s really too bad you can’t get latent prints off a person’s backside after two years or I’d prove to you what your alleged chum used to try.” She shrugged both shoulders and yawned. “Where can I sleep tonight?”

He nodded toward a yellow door. “Guest room’s the only space available, Casey.”

She stood up, stretched, yawned twice more. “I really do, you know, appreciate this. Of all the people I know in this heartless town you’re the only one who isn’t,” she told him, smiling. “I came to the right place in my hour of distress.” Crossing to him, she kissed him on the cheek and then, tightening the robe, went into the guest room.

Tuesday it rained, long and hard.

When Mike Filchock came hurrying into Stookie’s Restaurant in Studio City, twenty minutes late, his curly red hair was plastered to his head, and the bright orange lumberjack coat he’d been wearing of late started to give off steam. “Why do we keep coming to this dump?” he inquired as he slid into the booth and faced Wes.

“It’s close to the studio.”

“So is Harlan’s Car Wash, but we don’t dine there. Although I imagine the chow’s better.” Yanking several paper napkins from the dispenser atop the Formica tabletop, he blotted his head. “I’ve had a rough day. It’s a burden being the only nonjerk in the vicinity.”

“How’s the new show coming?”

“It’s a surefire hit.”

“Great. Who’s going to be doing it?”

“That part’s not concrete yet.” He patted his chest, getting his hand all wet. “I can feel it, though. You know, you can sense a flop and you can sense a hit. And Glickman in Remission is going to be a Top 10 show.”

“Glickman in Remission?”

“We changed the title from I’m Not Dying.”

“We?”

“I’m doing this with a partner now. Rosco Manger.”

“Who is?”

Mike was glancing around at the other lunchtime patrons. “Do you realize that everybody else in this pesthole is ancient? We’re the only people under forty.”

“You’re forty-two.”

“We’re the only people under forty-two. Boy, the sound of all these ancient coots gumming their gruel is going to distract me.

“Tell me who Rosco Manger is.”

“You ought to keep better informed about showbiz, since you work in the vineyards yourself. Manger’s the guy who did Young Bing for the Nolan Network.”

“When was this?”

Mike took another look around. “Nineteen eighty-six.”

“And what was Young Bing?”

“Ahead of its time,” answered his friend. “A brilliant concept, a sitcom dealing with the early years of Bing Crosby. The adventures of a crooner in 1930’s Hollywood. A brilliant notion, huh?”

“Patrons of Stookie’s must’ve loved it.”

“Hell, it ran a full thirteen weeks. These days that’s—” He paused, held up a hand. “Wait now, Wes, you’re not going to distract me from my real purpose in rendezvousing with you today. I came here because I have a holy mission.”

“I don’t want to talk about Casey.”

Mike grabbed up his menu. “Did you order?”

“Quite some time ago, yes.”

“Is she still squatting with you?”

“I told her she could stay until she finds a place to live.”

“That’s great, that is. It’s akin to telling a giant Brazilian jungle leech it can only suck your blood until another jerk comes along. Or like informing Dracula he can only bite your neck until somebody juicier pops up. Or it’s similar to... oh, hi, Marlys. I’ll have the vegetarian gyro, dear.”

A plump blonde waitress had stopped beside their booth. “How’s the new concept coming along, Mike?”

“It’s going to be a maximum hit, sweetheart.”

“I sure hope so.” Marlys rested one hand on the table edge and leaned in the redheaded writer’s direction. “The show of yours I really loved was a couple of seasons ago. The Floyd Yunkis Story.”

“It was a gem.”

“Now there was a concept. Based on a real life story about an escaped serial killer who became a standup comic. It, you know, combined the best elements of The Fugitive with Seinfeld,” she said. “How long was that on for?”

“Six weeks,” he answered. “We were on opposite Terminal Illness that season, a bad break.”

“Well, good luck with the new one. Malomar Productions is very interested in my script, by the way.” She smiled and moved along.

“You cannot lead a life of this quality in Des Moines, Iowa,” observed Mike, watching the waitress walk away.

“Probably not.”

“Okay, back to reality. What criminous scheme has Casey McLeod ensnared you in now?”

“Her damned house burned down, Mike. She simply needs someplace to stay for awhile.” He frowned at his friend. “I thought you were a Christian.”

“Nope, I let my membership lapse.” Holding up his left hand, Mike started ticking off fingers. “Let me — which is what level-headed buddies are for — let me remind you of the earlier messes this wench got you into. There was the instance of Grandma Lizzie’s pearls, for one. If I hadn’t been thick with that lady in the D.A.’s office, you both might’ve been sent—”

“Grandma Elsie.”

“What difference does it make? She doesn’t have a Grandma Lizzie or a Grandma Elsie.”

“Just because she’s an orphan, that doesn’t mean—”

“You don’t even know for sure she’s an orphan. She only told you she was.” He tapped another finger. “Then there were those bearer bonds she allegedly stumbled on whilst innocently jogging along the beach in Malibu. Turned out those were glommed from a hapless messenger who got bopped on the coco in Bel Air.”

“Nobody ever accused Casey of having anything to do with the theft of those bonds.”

“That’s because she made such a brilliant defense. She crossed her terrific legs, leaned over so far that each and every cop got a splendid view down the front of her—”

“C’mon, Mike.” He reached across the table to put his hand on his friend’s arm, the way a guest does when he wants the talk show host to shut up. “Listen, it’s simply that I don’t know. There’s something about Casey. She’s not like any other woman I’ve ever run into, including the one I was married to for three years.”

“I understand that Typhoid Mary had similar qualities, likewise Lizzie Borden.”

“It’s already settled. She’s staying with me for awhile.”

“They ought to start a Casey Anonymous organization,” suggested his friend. “Hell, she’s slept with enough guys to guarantee quite a membership. You could help each other shake the—”

“Quit it.”

“Okay, sorry.” He touched another finger. “The business with Justin Crouch’s Jaguar.”

“He lent it to her.”

“The Santa Monica law thought otherwise.”

“It was settled quietly. She wasn’t arrested.”

“All right, I admit I don’t see in her what you do, but... well, no, rewrite that. She is very attractive, sure, but she is also monumental trouble, old buddy,” warned Mike. “If you could think about this rationally, you’d realize you have to boot her right out your door. You’re thriving at Sparey Art, you can afford to treat her to an extended stay at a posh motel. Just make sure it’s a hostelry some distance from Santa Rita Beach.”

“Eventually I will. Right now, though, I more or less promised her I’d help her on a project.”

“Bank job or supermarket heist?”

“She has a chance to get hired as an assistant to Buzz Beckworth.”

“The old boy who draws the Rick the Rascal panel? Hell, he’s running in a thousand or so newspapers. There’s also that animated kid show, and a movie’s in the works,” Mike said. “Why would he want an assistant whose drawings look like they were turned out by a nervous worm who accidentally crawled through a puddle of ink?”

“Her stuffs improved a lot the last couple of years.”

“A one hundred percent improvement would still leave her a few notches below godawful.”

“The sample Rick the Rascal panels she did aren’t bad.”

“Ah, I see what you’re going to do, sappo. Ghost the stuff for her so she’ll get this job. Once she does, you’ll have to help her out until the last syllable of recorded time.”

“No, all I’m doing is helping her polish her samples. She gets the job, she’s on her own.”

“Sure, sure.” He shook his head. “Anyhow, I heard that Beckworth is way up in his sixties and is pretty much a recluse these days. Lives in a Moroccan mansion in Beverly Hills, place with a high stone wall around it and broken glass along the top. Sort of dwelling Norma Desmond or Dr. X would love to sublet.”

“Turns out he’s a distant relative of a friend of hers. The friend told him about Casey and set up the interview.”

“Are these people also related to Grandma Elsie?”

“I know I complained to you about some of the rough times I had when Casey and I lived together before,” he admitted. “I’ve changed since then, and I think Casey has, too.”

“You’re likely to get hurt again, buddy.”

“Not this time, no.”

“Remind me to interview you sometime for a new book I’m planning to write,” said Mike. “It’s entitled How to Win at Russian Roulette.”

Chance is what fouls you up, spoils your plans, and disrupts your tranquility. The return of Casey McLeod to Wes’s household had, initially, gone very well, and if he hadn’t happened to be listening to his car radio while driving home from the animation studio on that chill, for L.A., late afternoon in mid-November, his life might well have continued smoothly for awhile longer.

He’d done quite a bit of work on the sample Rick the Rascal panels, and they’d turned out looking very much as though they’d been drawn by the reclusive Buzz Beckworth himself. Casey’s wrist was still bothering her considerably, and so Wes, who was a very gifted artist, had done most of the penciling and inking on the newest batch of panels. He’d found Beckworth’s scratchy style easy to imitate.

And apparently the cartoonist was satisfied with the work. He’d hired Casey. She was also coming up with the gag ideas for the cartoons, and for each completed panel he used, the cartoonist paid her two hundred dollars. Not a fortune, but it added up to a pretty fair salary for Casey.

Turned out she’d stored some boxes and suitcases with a friend in Long Beach before starting to house sit for the Mirandas, and those provided clothes and household goods for her. An old friend in Pasadena was dating a guy who worked for a car lot, and he got her a special deal on the lease of a red Mitsubishi two-door. All in all, by the middle of November everything was going well. Wes and his guest had started sharing his bedroom the third night she was there.

But then he happened to hear an interview on the local NPR station he always listened to while driving across Greater Los Angeles, and that unsettled him considerably.

Casey wasn’t there when he got home at the front end of twilight. He paced the living room and kitchen, drinking down several cups of herb tea, muttering, reciting the speeches he intended to deliver to her.

“Having a nervous breakdown?” she inquired when she came in at nightfall and dropped her portfolio on the sofa. “I heard you babbling from all the way outside.”

“Where were you?”

Her eyes went wide. “Are you ticked off about something?”

“As a matter of fact.”

“Well, it can’t have a darn thing to do with me,” Casey said. “I drove over to Buzz’s to deliver the latest drawings, which he loves and adores, by the way. Then I drove down to talk with Roy Pomeroy about the next issue of Bertha the Biker. Going to have to postpone that because of my darned wrist.” She’d abandoned the sling long since, but still wore an elastic bandage around the injured wrist. She rubbed at that now.

He took a slow breath in and, as slowly, exhaled. “I heard an interesting interview on the radio this afternoon.”

“It must’ve been if it’s got you so fired up.”

“Yeah, they were talking to Carlos Miranda.”

“See? I told you he existed.”

“He does, yes. He’s on a tour to promote his latest novel, Sixty-one Years of Misfortune and Sorrow.”

“Carlos writes fairly grim stuff.”

“One of the most fascinating parts of this interview was when he mentioned that this was his very first trip, ever, to Southern California,” continued Wes. “He’s lived in Taos, New Mexico, for the past five years.”

“I wonder why he’s denying having lived here?” She frowned, rubbing at her wrist again. “Probably some sort of trauma induced by the fire.”

“Carlos Miranda also mentioned that he’s gay.”

“Yes, I was aware of that. Carmelita’s very understanding and they—”

“No, nope, won’t work, Casey. There is no Carmelita. No, this guy lives in New Mexico with a photographer named Earl.” He paused, eyed the young woman for a few seconds. “So?”

She sighed and shrugged simultaneously. “That’s the trouble with fibbing, isn’t it? Some little unimportant—”

“Little? You’ve spun a massive falsehood here.”

“Okay, I did.” She sighed again, looking very contrite. “The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was moving out on you. When the fires started up this year, it struck me as something I could use to arrange a comeback. You’re such a decent, understanding man that I was sure you wouldn’t throw me out if I pretended to be homeless.”

“How can I have an opportunity to be understanding when all you do is tell me unmitigated baloney?”

“Wes, things have worked out fine, haven’t they? So why look a gift house in the mouth?”

“Horse,” he corrected. “Your car didn’t explode.”

“Well, no. That’s it out in the driveway.”

“There’s no friend who’s being romanced by a car salesman in Pasadena.”

“I made that up, rather than having to explain—”

“What about Rasmussen?”

“Who?”

“The kindly trucker who rescued you from the blazing hills of Maravilla Canyon and delivered you to my doorstep.”

“He’s fictitious, too. Actually I drove over in my car and parked it around the comer.” She took a few careful steps in his direction. “The thing is, Wes, we’re both happy now. I think it’s great we’re back together, and I promise I won’t fib any more.”

“Where the hell does Buzz Beckworth come in? Did you make that up, too?”

She turned away, walked over, and sat on the sofa. “I was hoping you weren’t going to ask about him,” she admitted forlornly, tapping her forefinger on the portfolio clasp.

“This stuff I’ve been diligently aping — you actually take it to him?”

“Six panels a week. Yes, that part’s all true.”

“But?”

Casey folded her hands in her lap and studied them. “Okay, I suppose I’d better explain the whole mess to you,” she said slowly. “Yes, I owe it to you.”

“Did you steal something from the guy?”

“No, nothing like that,” she assured him. “It’s only that, well, I’ve known Buzz somewhat longer than I let on to you.” Her eyes avoided his. “I was living with him, we were lovers for about six months.”

“He’s a recluse. How’d—”

“A relative of his really did introduce us because Buzz was looking for some help on the panel. That led to the rest of it,” she explained. “But I really have been his assistant. I started drawing Rick the Rascal before Buzz and I ever became close — and I’ve kept on.”

“So what happened? How’d you get here?”

“Just a minute.” She held up her good hand. “I think I had also better tell you that I’m actually getting five hundred dollars per panel. I told you two hundred because I wanted you to think I’d only just started — and that sounded more like a starting salary.”

He went over, feet dragging some, and sat in an armchair. “Why am I drawing it?”

“Well, when I decided the romance was over and I wanted to move out, Buzz was really very nice about everything,” she told him. “He said I could keep on being his assistant even if I wasn’t going to live with him any more. So now all I have to do is visit his place in Beverly Hills once a week — as I did today — to talk about gag ideas and turn in the finished drawings.”

“Your wrist is really sprained?”

“Well, of course. That happened while I was moving out. I took a fall when I was toting a couple of heavy suitcases down to the car,” she said. “I wanted to move back in with you anyway, and since you’re such a terrific artist and could help out, why, that was an extra bonus for me.”

“I would’ve helped you, you know, even if you’d arrived fully clothed and told me the straight truth right off.”

She looked directly at him. “I really did start off intending to be honest with you. But somehow inventing things is more fun.” She stood up, lifting her portfolio off the sofa. “I’ll move out tonight if you want.”

He shook his head. “No, I’d like you to stay.” He stood and moved closer to her. “But try to control your imagination, huh?”

“I will, honest.” Smiling, she kissed him.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Wes was in his office at Sparey Art, getting ready for an early departure. He was standing next to his desk, tucking a bottle of Casey’s favorite California chardonnay into his attaché case, when Mike Filchock entered unannounced.

“Sit down,” he advised, holding up a folded newspaper in his left hand.

“Don’t have much time, Mike. I promised Casey I’d—”

“Park and listen.” He put his hand on Wes’s shoulder and urged him down into his desk chair. He perched on the edge of the desk. His orange lumberjack jacket gave off a mildew scent.

“What’s wrong? Trouble with Glickman in Remission?”

“We’re calling it No Worse Than a Bad Cold now, but that’s beside the point.” Unfurling the newspaper, he spread it out on the desktop. “I assume you haven’t seen today’s news sheet?”

“Nope, why?”

Mike’s stubby finger jabbed at a story just below the fold. The headline read CARTOONIST KIN IN BIZARRE FRAUD.

“This is about Buzz Beckworth,” Wes realized before reading the accompanying story.

“Exactly.” Mike snatched up the paper. “I’ve perused the yarn several times and added to my store of knowledge by listening to newscasts while racing hither to Studio City,” he explained. “I’ll give you a lucid summary.”

“Hey, I’m capable of reading a—”

“Pay attention now.” The writer thrust the newspaper up under his arm. “Buzz Beckworth is dead.”

“Damn. Was he murdered?”

“Thus far the authorities think it was natural causes. But the fact I’d like you to dwell on is this, old buddy — Buzz has been dead, the coroner estimates, since October thirtieth or thereabouts.”

Wes straightened up, frowning. “Hey, that can’t be right. Casey was over there just the day before yesterday, turning in the week’s work,” he told his friend. “And she got a check for three thousand dollars, signed by Beckworth. I saw the damn thing.”

Nodding, Mike said, “All part of the bizarre fraud.”

“Do they mention her in this thing?” He reached toward the paper.

Mike maintained his hold on it. “No, nobody seems to know about her yet. Now stop heckling and listen to my narration,” he suggested. “Okay, a nephew of Buzz Beckworth’s was apparently one of the few people the old recluse allowed into his manse. On or about October thirtieth of this present year, this lad found his uncle deceased, probably from a heart attack. The old gent was the prime source of this fellow’s income. He runs a shabby comic book company down in—”

“Pomeroy.” He shot to his feet. “His name is Roy Pomeroy, isn’t it?”

“It is, yep. Know him?”

“No, but he publishes Bertha the Biker.”

“Ah yes, that collection of hen scratches that Casey McLeod claims is cartooning. That’s the Pomeroy in question, sure enough.”

Wes drifted over to his drawing board, looked down unseeingly at the storyboard tacked there. “Go on.”

“Roy decided that if he could stow his uncle’s body someplace around there, he ought to be able to turn a pretty penny for awhile,” said Mike. “He did a lot of the old gent’s banking for him anyway. The income on the Rick the Rascal property — daily newspaper panel, comic books, TV, toys, and such — comes to about two hundred thousand per month.”

“A tidy sum.”

“And that’d go mostly to charity once Buzz officially passed on to glory,” Mike went on. “By doing a little simple forgery, Roy Pomeroy — a melodious name, isn’t it? — Roy Pomeroy diverted a fair amount of that monthly loot out of Uncle Buzz’s accounts and into his own pockets. I am supposing that dear Casey got her fair share.”

Wes sank down into his drawing board chair, resting his elbows on the slanting board. “But Roy had a big problem. In order to maintain the illusion that Buzz was still alive, somebody had to keep drawing the damned panel.”

“When Buzz shuffled off, he was probably a few weeks ahead. That gave Roy a little lead time to dig up a sub to ghost the stuff for him. He needed, keep in mind, a ghost who wasn’t annoyingly honest,” Mike elaborated. “I’m certain Casey was the first person he thought of to do the job for him.”

“But she knew she wasn’t up to drawing anything like that.” Wes shook his head. “Those penciled samples she passed off on me as her own were probably drawn by Buzz right before he died.”

“My guess, too. Roy offered her money, three thousand a week or probably more, if she’d turn out Rick the Rascal for him.”

“And she realized immediately that I’d be the perfect person actually to do the job.”

“This latest yarn she handed you, old chum, about being Buzz’s lover, wasn’t true either.”

“How’d they tumble to what Roy was up to?”

“Chance. The fellow who comes around every two months to service the air-conditioning system dropped by yesterday while Roy was out. He let himself into the basement with the key Buzz had given him, and while he was attending to his chores, he noticed a strange odor. He poked around until he found the corpse where it’d been stashed.”

“And Roy hasn’t implicated Casey at all?”

“He’s claiming he produced the fake panels by tracing parts of old drawings and combining them in new ways. That—”

“The checks she showed me. Those’ll link her to—”

“I’m betting those were just window dressing, old chum. Part of the con and never meant to be cashed,” said Mike, tapping himself on the elbow with the rolled-up paper. “I’ll also wager that Roy is going to protect the lady and never say she helped him with his bizarre fraud. Guys, most of them I’ve noticed, tend to feel protective about her. Have you noticed that, too?”

“She’ll get away clear.”

“Once again.”

He rose, very slowly, to his feet. “I’ll head home. Ask her to leave.”

“Don’t weaken. And happy Thanksgiving.”

Wes gave him the bottle of wine and left. When he arrived at his beach cottage, Casey’s car wasn’t in the driveway. All her clothes were gone from the bedroom, along with the dish-ware and the blender she’d brought. The only items of hers she left behind were three Carlos Miranda paperbacks in the living room bookcase.

Steepled on the coffee table was a copy of the day’s paper. There was no note, no goodbye message.

As predicted, Roy Pomeroy never mentioned her during his trial or sentencing.

And Wes didn’t hear from Casey again for nearly a year and a half.

But that’s another story.