Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 38, No. 13, Mid-December 1993

Had she got through to him? At last? Just when she’d given up?

Were things going to turn out right?

This time, were things going to turn out right?

“I’m glad you told me that.”

Her hand was clenched around the phone.

“But it’s not a reason to do something to yourself.”

She concentrated all her strength.

“Nothing is.”

She made herself speak slowly. Slowly and carefully.

“Now, I want you to tell me where you are. So we can send an ambulance for you.”

There was a long pause.

“No.”

His voice was very faint.

“I want—” she began.

“I’m going down to the beach.”

“I can hardly hear you.”

“Then I’m going to walk into the water.”

“Into the water?”

“Into the sunset.”

“I don’t want you to do that.”

“That’s too bad.”

“I don’t want—”

“It doesn’t matter what you don’t want.”

His voice was getting fainter.

“Which beach?” she said desperately.

There were beaches all along this part of the coast. Mile after mile of sand and Atlantic Ocean.

“Never mind.”

“I want—”

There was a click.

She pressed the phone against her ear, trying to hear something.

Nothing.

There was a hand on her arm. Marianne’s.

“He hung up?”

She banged down the phone. “Damn,” she said. “Damn, damn, damn.”

“You did everything you could.”

“He’s going to walk into the water. Into the sunset.”

“You did—”

She pounded on the table with her fist.

“I did everything I could, and it didn’t work.”

“No.”

“It didn’t work.”

“Sometimes it doesn’t.”

Marianne was standing beside her. She buried her face in Marianne’s dress.

“It never works.” She scarcely knew what she was saying. Words were pouring out of her, furiously. “They just go and kill themselves.”

“Some of them do.”

“I hate them. I hate them. I hate them.”

“Them?”

“All of them.”

“You’re really angry at her, aren’t you?”

She raised her head. “What?”

“At your sister Megan.”

Something inside her gave way.

Tears filled her eyes.

Yes. I am. I’m really mad at her.

She shivered. She wiped her eyes. She took a long, snuffling breath.

This was something to think about, later, when she got home.

About getting really mad at someone. And forgiving her.

“Wait,” she said suddenly.

“What is it?”

“ ‘Into the sunset.’ ”

“Into the sunset?”

“That’s what he said he was going to do. ‘Walk into the water. Into the sunset.’ ”

“Maybe,” Marianne began soothingly, “he won’t really—”

“But how can he do that?”

“How?”

“He left me a clue.”

“A clue?”

“I don’t think he meant to, but he told me where he is.”

“He did?”

“He did want me to help him.”

“Yes?”

“The sun sets in the west.”

“Yes.”

“Our beaches don’t face west. Not our ocean beaches. They face the Atlantic.”

“But—”

“It’s got to be a beach on a lake! And that was the noise I heard!”

“What noise?”

“I heard something go by, and I didn’t know what it was. But now I do. It was a motorboat!”

“Well—”

“And there’s only one lake around here that’s big enough to have motorboats! And a beach! Crystal Lake!”

They looked at each other.

“You may be right,” Marianne said.

“We can send an ambulance!”

“Did he give us permission?”

“He said, Find me!”

Marianne sat down. She picked up her phone.

“First I have to call our Home Director and get an okay.”

Kelly sat back, exhausted.

She’d done everything she could.

She knew she had.

And maybe, she thought, that was enough.

She opened her eyes.

“Do you think there’s a chance?”

Marianne was dialing.

“Yes. I think there is.”

Criminal Justice by Albert Bashover

A bland, almost featureless seven story office building sits on the bank of the river Seine in Saint-Cloud, near Paris. Most people would not take special note of it unless they walked into the marble entranceway and noticed the relief on the wall. It depicts a globe of the world overlying the scales of justice; the globe is pierced vertically by a sword. At the bottom is the word interpol. Above, on the left, are the initials O.I.P.C., and on the right I.C.P.O., which are the French and English initials for International Crime Police Organization. This unimpressive building at 26 rue Armengaud contains the offices of Interpol’s general secretariat and is Interpol’s main office. The quietness of the halls belies the fact that it is chronically understaffed...