Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

“I’m not a policeman.” I’d never gotten around to saying who I was and he’d never thought to ask. “My name’s Scudder, I’m working for Paula’s sister. I suppose you’re under citizen’s arrest. I want you to come to the precinct house with me. There’s a cop named Guzik there and you can talk to him.”

“I don’t have to say anything,” he said. He thought for a moment. “You’re not a cop.”

“No.”

“What I said to you doesn’t mean a thing.” He took a breath, straighened up a little in his chair. “You can’t prove a thing.”

“Maybe I can and maybe I can’t. You probably left prints I in Paula’s apartment. I don’t know if Paula left any prints here or not. You probably scrubbed them up. But there may be neighbors who know you were sleeping with her, and someone may have noticed you scampering back and forth between the apartments that night. It’s even possible a neighbor heard the two of you struggling in here before she went out the window. When the cops know what to look for, they usually find it sooner or later. It’s knowing what you’re after that’s the hard part.

“But that’s not even the point. Put your shoes on, Lane. That’s right. Now we’re going to go see Guzik, that’s his name, and he’s going to advise you of your rights. He’ll tell you that you have the right to remain silent, and that’s the truth, that’s a right you have. And if you remain silent and you get a decent lawyer and do what he tells you, I think you can beat this charge, I really do.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Why?” I was starting to feel drained, but I kept on with it. “Because the worst thing you could do is remain silent, Lane — believe me, that’s the worst thing you could do. If you’re smart, you’ll tell Guzik everything you remember. You’ll make a complete voluntary statement and you’ll read it over when they type it up and you’ll sign your name on the bottom.

“Because you’re not really a killer. It doesn’t come easily to you. If Cary McCloud had killed Paula, he’d never lose a night’s sleep over it. But you’re not a psychopath. You were drugged and half crazy and terrified and you did something wrong and it’s eating you up. Your face fell apart the minute I walked in here tonight. You could play it cute and beat this charge, but all you’d wind up doing is beating yourself.

“Because you live on a high floor, Lane. The ground’s only four seconds away. If you squirm off the hook, you’ll never get it out of your head, you’ll never be able to mark it Paid in Full, and one day or night you’ll open the window and you’ll go out of it.”

“No!”

I took his arm. “Come on,” I said. “We’ll go see Guzik.”

The Last Becak by Gary Alexander

I am a travel writer. I visit interesting places and write about what I experience. The pieces are published in the newspaper that employs me. Sometimes they are syndicated, and when they are, everybody makes a little more money.

The following story will not be syndicated. It can’t be because it won’t be published. Travel articles are meant to enlighten and entertain the prospective traveler and the casual reader. They are not meant to describe murder and correlated crimes.

People expect me to steer them to where the sun is hot and to where the snow is powdery. They expect me to tell them where to get the best pizza and where not to be cheated on souvenirs. No exposition on clotting puddles of blood, thank you.

But read on and that’s what you’re gonna get.

My assignment was Indonesia. Ten days max, my editor said. Pick your spot.

How do you pick a spot? Indonesia is the fifth most populous country in the world, a thirteen thousand six hundred seventy-seven island archipelago that stretches farther than from Seattle to Miami. It’s like asking an Indonesian journalist to come to the States for a week and a half and Pick A Spot. Disney World? NYC? The Grand Canyon?

What I didn’t pick is Bali. Everybody who does Indonesia does Bali. Colorful culture, sandy beaches, et cetera. They take their notes, shoot their films, and go home, figuring that there’s no such thing as too much of a good thing.

Maybe that’s what I should have done.

But I didn’t.

I picked Jakarta, the capital. I get that syndication stroke now and then because I scout out the unusual, the exotic, the obscure.

If you can call a city of eight or nine or ten million obscure. Nobody knows the exact population. Leave the modern downtown core of vertical glass and steel glitz and Jakarta is a mazelike sprawl of neighborhoods and villages. It’s flat, hot, and growing like crabgrass. The Los Angeles of Asia.