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

She smiled at Archer and, in her best Miss America voice, said, “Your fly’s open.”

He slithered backwards and sideways, his right hand surreptitiously fingering his zipper. His look turned poisonous on finding it closed, and he said in a strangled voice, “This way. Mercy’s in the den.”

McLean, fighting to keep a straight face, glided after them, automatically casing the house. Not as a burglar, although first-time acquaintances had been known to quietly count their silverware, but as a fireman; checking for smoke alarms and assessing the fire load as well as construction technique. Given the multiple rooms jammed with furniture, the abundance of wooden paneling, the thick carpets and heavy drapes, he decided the house would be an absolute bitch if it caught fire.

Mercy Archer didn’t rise from behind a massive rosewood desk that dominated the high-ceilinged room, heavily masculine with its gun racks, glass-eyed trophy heads, and black leather chairs. She motioned abruptly toward two wingbacks directly before the desk. Archer went to the bar, poured two drinks, kept one, and handed the other to Mercy. He leaned against the desk, drawing an irritable glance from his stepmother, which he ignored. He raised his tumbler in a half salute. “So, Rocky Point has come to its senses. We’ll just sign the papers and put this incident behind us.”

Sarah glanced at McLean with a lifted eyebrow.

“Rocky Point won’t be settling out of court,” he smiled inwardly at Sarah’s sharp intake of breath, “and you’d be foolish to take this before a jury.”

Mercy jumped to her feet and leaned, trembling, on the desktop. “How dare you. Of course they’ll pay. They owe me. My husband is dead, and they owe me. They owe me.”

Trent Archer tried unsuccessfully to wave his stepmother to her chair. “And just how do you think you can get away with denying us what is rightfully ours? I remind you we have an excellent case, everything is stacked in our favor.”

“What you mean is that you need the three million desperately,” McLean said calmly.

Mercy looked blank. Trent Archer’s drink wobbled dangerously. He set the glass down. “I don’t believe I follow you.” He avoided looking at his stepmother.

“You should, you’re the one who filed the bankruptcy papers for your father the day before his death. He was nearly two million in the hole.”

“You’re lying,” Mercy said quickly. “My husband was a sharp businessman. He would never have allowed that to happen.”

“Perhaps not, but someone was playing the commodities market, using his account. You know the one, Mr. Archer, with the brokerage house of Amy & Taub.”

With a flash of comprehension, Mercy turned to Trent, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You had power of attorney, from when he had that heart attack.”

He returned her stare with undisguised hatred. “Another week was all I needed, I could have been rich. But the broker started getting worried, sold me out. I could’ve made it. Then you’d see, my father would see. I have what it takes.”

Mercy, moving with the speed of a cornered fer-de-lance, struck Trent with an open-handed blow that snapped his head sideways. “You never had what it took. And you never will...”

McLean’s thick forearm interrupted Trent’s lunge for Mercy, who stood her ground. Trent retreated stiff-legged until the back of his knees caught a chair. He dropped into it, spent.

Mercy transferred her contemptuous stare to McLean. “None of this changes our case against Sutton and that retard of his.”

“Robbie has Down’s Syndrome, he’s not a retard,” Sarah said coldly.

Mercy flopped into her chair. “It hardly matters what his problem is, he did it and he owes me.”

“Robbie’s condition may not matter, but Trent’s does.” McLean flipped open his briefcase and pulled out the tire iron. Trent, who’d followed his moves listlessly, paled.

“And just what does that have to do with anything?” Mercy asked.

McLean pointed the bar’s sharply beveled end at Trent Archer. “He killed your husband with it.”

Sarah gasped. “Jesus, P. J.”

Archer staggered to his feet, his eyes darting around the room. With a triumphant sneer he aimed a shaking finger at his stepmother. “No, she did it.”

Mercy jerked a desk drawer open. Her voice rose to a shriek. “You lying little bastard. You’ve stolen everything from me. Everything.”

Even as McLean threw himself across the desk, he knew it was too late. The Colt Python spat with a deafening roar as he wrapped both arms around her flailing body. She pulled the trigger again, nearly kneecapping McLean. Sarah, wielding a lamp, smashed the pistol from her fist. Trent Archer lay doubled up in front of the chair, crying and clutching his stomach.

Sarah’s eyes were as hard as the thin strip of Formica table separating them. “I suppose you should be congratulated.”

McLean winced, partly from her tone, partly from the pulsating welt where Mercy’s bullet had grazed his knee two days before. “Pardon?”