The First Golden Age of Mystery & Crime MEGAPACK™: 26 Stories by Fletcher Flora

Six Reasons for Murder

Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March 1964.

Fanny Bauer had an idea how to kill Loren. It seemed like a good idea in the beginning, and the more she thought about it the better it looked. She got the idea from watching a late movie on television. This is not intended as a criticism of television, which already gets more than its share, but just shows you how simply a murder can sometimes begin.

If you have to blame someone, blame the Sioux — or the Cheyenne — or was it the Apaches? They were in the movie that Fanny saw, an old Western, and they took the hero, tied him up with wet rawhide thongs, and left him out in the sun. Wet rawhide shrinks as it dries, as almost everyone knows if he will only stop to think about it, and the idea was to make the rawhide cut into the flesh of the hero. It turned out that the hero was rescued by the United States Cavalry, but he was only tied by the wrists and ankles, anyhow, which would have been painful for a while, but not fatal.

What if a wet rawhide thong were tied around someone’s throat? Fanny thought.

She kept it impersonal to start with, sort of academic, and it wasn’t until later that the throat became Loren’s. She didn’t know if the Sioux — or Cheyenne or Apaches — had ever used this method to strangle a captive, for it wasn’t in the movie; but she did have a vague memory of having read about it in a mystery story sometime or other. The movie merely stirred up the memory of the story and so she couldn’t claim any originality for the idea — although it required, after all, a certain amount of cleverness to apply it.

And Loren Bauer was certainly an ideal subject. Or victim.

In the first place, as a retired political boss with a severe deficiency of ethics, he had made at least a hundred bitter enemies who would gladly strangle him if given the chance.

In the second place, he was now relatively vulnerable, having had a stroke that left him with legs that were practically useless.

In the third place, he was always taking some kind of drug for the relief of his physical discomfort or his conscience or both, and it would be quite easy to give him enough to knock him out, although not enough actually to kill him, because of what might be discovered post mortem.

In the fourth place, he was rich.

In the fifth place, it was beginning to look as if he were going on indefinitely refusing to die naturally, for his heart was sound, in spite of the stroke, and he adhered rigidly to his low cholesterol diet and had given up smoking.

In the sixth place, he was too old for Fanny by some thirty years, and it was high time he was discarded, if not replaced.

Six reasons for murder. Fanny could probably have added a few more, if pressed, but surely six were enough. She decided, after much thought, that she would discuss the matter in general terms with Stuart, who was Loren’s nephew. As a matter of fact, Stuart might have been Fanny’s seventh reason.

“I’ve thought of a way to kill Loren,” she said to Stuart one day.

“Your rate of production is low,” he said. “I’ve thought of a dozen ways.”

“If you’re so clever, why haven’t you done something about it?”

“Thinking and doing are two different things, honey. Doing is far too risky.”

“Well, my way, if properly executed, is hardly risky at all.”

“I’m intrigued, to say the least. What way do you have in mind?”

“I don’t believe I’ll tell you. You’re rather weak, however charming, and you’d only be a handicap in a touchy project like this.”

This suited Stuart perfectly. He always preferred, if possible, to profit from the efforts of others. As for Fanny, the brief conversation had the effect of making a plan, and the very next time she was downtown she went to a small leather shop on a side street and bought a strip of rawhide to be used, she explained, as a lacing. A minimum of research had taught her that rawhide was frequently used as lacing, and the purchase was routine.

She took the strip of rawhide home and put it in a basin in the basement to soak. It was necessary, of course, to wait for an appropriate day.

The year was still in the first half of June, and it had been, moreover, unusually cool. Then, just when one might have expected warmer weather, it began to rain, and it rained steadily for almost a week — a gray drizzle every day.

Fanny was impatient to get something accomplished, now that she had made a decision, and she was about to despair of ever having a warm fair day. She listened to the weather forecast each evening on radio and television, and even verified the daily forecasts by consulting the evening paper.

Finally, of course, the wet spell ended, and the mercury in thermometers began to climb, and the days became as appropriate as she could possibly ask for — appropriate for murder.

The day she chose was a Saturday. The cook and the maid left at noon for the remainder of the week-end, and Loren himself, ironically enough, made a certainty of what had been, so far, no more than a plan. He had his lunch in his wheelchair in the library, which was used for almost anything except reading, and later, just before the servants left, Fanny went in to get his tray and take it back to the kitchen.

“Do you know what?” he said.

“No,” Fanny said. “What?”

“I believe I’ll sit out in the sun for a while.”

Fanny was, naturally, quite pleased and excited by this opportunity, which required no clever maneuvering on her part; but she was careful not to seem too eager.

“It’s pretty warm out there,” she said. “In the eighties.”

“That’s all right. I need some sun for a change. I’ll come in when I’ve had enough.”

“Would you like me to push you out on the terrace?”

“Don’t bother. I can manage by myself.”

“I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll fix you a tall cold drink of something and bring it out to you. Would you like that?”

He said he would, which was his mistake, and Fanny went to fix him a tall cold anesthetic highball that contained incidental ingredients of citrus juice and gin and carbonated water. As a gesture of innocence, she asked the maid to take it to him on her way out of the house for the week-end, and five minutes later, seeing the cook off, she found the glass already half empty when she went out herself.

“It’s such a warm day,” she said, “I think I’ll go out to the Country Club and have a swim in the pool. Do you mind?”

“Go right ahead,” he said. “You’ll be all alone if I do.”

“I like being alone.”

“You aren’t expecting anyone?”

“No, I’m not. And if anyone comes, I’ll pretend I’m not here. You run along. Call Stuart to come pick you up, if you like. Being an escort is about ail he’s good for.”

“That’s a good idea. It’s better than my going alone.”

She went inside and phoned Stuart. It took him quite a while to answer the telephone, because he wasn’t up yet. Stuart was hardly ever out of bed before early afternoon, and Fanny had counted on this when she called.

Stuart agreed to pick her up, although he was somewhat less than enthusiastic about taking a swim, and it took him slightly longer than half an hour to dress and get there.

In the meanwhile Fanny used the time profitably. Returning to the terrace, having detoured en route by way of the basement, she found the tall glass empty and Loren dead to this world if not yet alive in the next. He was, indeed, in such a deep sleep that it gave her a little shock of fear. She was afraid she had been too generous with the drug, and it would never do to have him dying because of that. It couldn’t reasonably be passed off as heart failure, not with Loren’s recent electrocardiograms on record, and the excess of drugs would certainly be detected in an autopsy.

But after a close inspection she was satisfied that she was safe. Loren would not die of the drug, and any dose less than lethal would surely be accepted as normal, for he took the stuff all the time, as was well known.

And so, satisfied, she had merely to tie the wet rawhide strip snugly around Loren’s throat. It was easy to do — Loren was wearing an open-neck sports shirt. Then she carried the tall glass inside, washed it and dried it and put it away, and went upstairs to get a beach bag, into which she put a black swimming suit, brief, a striped towel, immense, and a tube of suntan lotion, economy size. She was waiting downstairs, ready to go, when Stuart arrived.

He was so grumpy from having been wakened early that Fanny was tempted to tell him what she had done, just to cheer him up a little; but she decided that it wouldn’t be wise. She resisted temptation all the way to the Country Club, and finally compromised, as they were arriving, by hinting at just enough to give him something pleasant to anticipate.

“I have a notion,” she said, “that there is going to be a happy surprise in your life today.”

“Yes?” He looked at her disagreeably. “What are you, an astrologer or something?”

“You’ll see,” she said. “You need only be a little patient.”

She wouldn’t tell him any more, not a word, but his humor did improve, and they had a cool pleasant swim in the pool and sat for a while in deck chairs along the side. It was really quite warm in the sun, and so they dressed pretty soon and moved into the clubhouse, where they had cold drinks and played several hands of gin rummy. All in all, it was quite a pleasant afternoon that passed quickly, and it was a little later than Fanny had planned when Stuart got her home again.

“Come in and say hello to Loren,” Fanny said.

“Well, I don’t want to, but I suppose I’d better,” he said.

They walked inside together and Fanny went off ostensibly to look for Loren. She ran upstairs and down again. She looked into several rooms. She called his name. At last, after putting on a good show, she went out to the terrace — and all of a sudden she had the most terrible feeling that things had gone wrong and that Loren would be alive and waiting for her.

But as it turned out, the feeling was no more than a foolish apprehension, for the rawhide had shrunk, as guaranteed by the old Western, and Loren was stone dead.

Working as fast as she could, Fanny began trying to remove the strip of rawhide from Loren’s throat. But it had drawn deeply into the flesh and had become very hard in the sun, and for a fearful moment she thought she might have to call Stuart to help her remove it. Then she remembered the penknife that Loren invariably carried in his pocket.

She finished out the knife, cut the rawhide, and dropped it and the knife into her beach bag, which she had carried all this time. Then, feeling relieved and composed, she went back into the house and found Stuart waiting where she had left him.

“Loren is still out on the terrace,” she said. “He seems to be dead. You had better call the police.”

“Police!” Stuart jumped and stared at her. “Why the devil should I call the police?”

“If I’m not mistaken, Loren has been murdered. Strangled, I believe. He had many enemies, you know. Apparently one of them slipped up behind him and choked him to death.”

“Oh, sure!” Stuart’s eyes, which had popped wide open, were now narrowed. “This wouldn’t be the happy surprise you were talking about, would it?”

“Please don’t waste time, Stuart. Are you going to call the police, or aren’t you?”

“I am not. What I’m going to do is get out of here immediately.”

“Don’t be absurd. You can’t possibly be involved, and neither can I. After all, we were away together all afternoon. Besides, it will only look worse for you if you leave.”

“Not if you don’t tell anyone I was here.”

“I’ll certainly have to tell the police. You know very well that it’s illegal to withhold information in a murder case.”

“It’s also illegal to strangle husbands.”

“I haven’t strangled a husband — not mine nor anyone else’s. Stuart, do as I say. Go and call the police immediately.”

“Well, it looks like I’m hooked, and I’ll have to.”

“That’s a good boy. In the meantime, I’ll go up to my room and lie down. It’s expected of widows to behave properly in these matters, and I don’t want to create a bad impression — especially for the police.”

She went upstairs, carrying her beach bag. In her room she hung the bag on a hook far back in her closet, then kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed. She was inwardly far too excited to continue lying there, however, and after a while she got up and sat in a chair by a window.

She wished that the window overlooked the terrace so that she could watch what would go on down there; but the terrace was on the other side of the house. It would be necessary, she thought to dispose of the strip of rawhide, but there would be plenty of time for that later. Meanwhile it would be safe enough where it was, in the beach bag, for there was no reason in the world why anyone should look into it, or even think of looking.

Now that it was so nearly finished, she felt a great urgency to have it finished altogether. She sat quietly, listening for sounds, but she could hear nothing in the big house and see nothing pertinent from the window. After a long time she began to suspect that Stuart had not even called the police as he was instructed to do. She was almost ready to go downstairs and see for herself if he was still there or had sneaked away like a coward, when there was suddenly, without the prelude of any other sound, a brisk rapping on her door and a voice that sounded somehow official. “Mrs. Bauer. Are you there?”

“Yes,” she said. “Who is it, please?”

“Lieutenant Peavy. Police. I’d like to talk with you if you feel up to it.”

“Of course. Just a moment.”

She stood up and put on her shoes and opened the door.

“I’ve been lying down,” she said. “I understand. Are you sure you’re ready to talk?”

“Quite ready.”

“Will you come downstairs, or would you prefer to talk here?”

“Here, if you don’t mind. Please come in.”

She crossed to the bed and sat on the edge of it, while he pulled the chair around from the window and sat facing her. As a policeman, she thought, he looked remarkably inoffensive. To be perfectly candid, from her particular point of view, he looked relatively safe if not inept. He was slight of build, with limp brown hair brushed over from the side, and his tired suit hung loosely on his body. He held his hands clasped between his knees, as if he were embarrassed and uncertain of himself.

“I wonder,” he said, “if you would just tell me just what happened.”

“There isn’t much to tell, really. I’ve been away this afternoon. I went swimming at the Country Club with Mr. Bauer’s nephew. I believe you met him downstairs. When we left here, Loren was sitting on the terrace in the sun. He was going to wheel himself inside when he’d had enough. Stuart and I didn’t return until rather late, and I found Loren still on the terrace. You know how he was when I found him.”

“Yes. Dead. Strangled. Tell me, Mrs. Bauer, did you see the weapon?”

“The weapon?”

“Yes. Whatever was used to strangle him. From the appearance of his throat it must have been a very stout cord or a steel wire. Something like that.”

“I didn’t see it whatever it was. The murderer must have taken it away with him. Wouldn’t he naturally do that?”

“He might. He might not. In this case, he did. Or he didn’t. What I mean is, the weapon was taken away — but not at the time of the murder. It remained in place around the victim’s throat all the time he was on the terrace. Until you came home, Mrs. Bauer?”

“What’s that? What did you say?” Lieutenant Peavy twisted his hands together, giving the impression of wringing them in an agony of embarrassment.

“I see that you got the beginning of a tan on your face and throat this afternoon, Mrs. Bauer. So did your husband. Except on the narrow line around his throat that the sun didn’t touch. Can you explain that?”

She couldn’t, of course. She couldn’t even try. She wondered desperately if she could somehow put the blame on Stuart, but it didn’t seem likely. Most of all, she wondered how she could have failed to think of such a simple thing while being so clever about everything else. Now they would certainly search her room and look into her beach bag — and there was not a thing she could do to prevent it.

What was Peavy saying?

“I’ve been trying to figure out how you did it, Mrs. Bauer,” he was saying, “and I think I’ve got it.” His expression was almost ludicrously apologetic. “You see, I watch the late movies on television too.”